


Thanksgiving at The Last Curry House in New Jersey

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Community where you find it, Curry, Did I Mention Curry?, Even Though New Jersey is Known For Lasagna, Horror, It is a Global Epidemic After All Just Sayin', Lots & Lots of Character Death, New Jersey Giants, Other, Year 0 (Stand Still Stay Silent)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-05-27 07:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15019994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: An imagining of the Y0 apocalypse and its aftermath, set in a strip mall in rural New Jersey.





	1. The George Washington Shopping Centre

**Author's Note:**

> (Full credit to the resident 16yo for the name "Garden Ho's")

She had opened the door to the Curry Palace tentatively, stamped the snow off her boots, then stared at the menu for a very long time. Finally, in a voice cracked with disuse, she placed an order for lamb biryani. She looked incredulously around the restaurant as she waited, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her coat. She stared at the little candle and incense dish in the foyer, twitching occasionally at the sounds of her meal being prepared. She raised her head and gazed with haunted eyes above her mask at the man behind the cash register. “I can’t believe you’re still open,” the woman shook her head.

“I have nowhere else to go,” Govind shrugged. “I see no reason to join all of you on the roads. Here, I can still do some good, and look after my family.” He sighed. “I don’t know.”

After a silence, the woman asked, “Any of your family sick?” Govind turned his face away and nodded. The woman nodded in sympathy. They both knew better than to chat about the numbers.

Govind’s mother came out holding a foam plastic container and placed it on the counter. “Be careful, it’s hot, you know,” she said before shuffling back into the kitchen.

“It…smells so good,” the woman carefully picked up the container. “I can’t believe…” but she couldn’t say anything more as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Do you want to stay here and eat it, after all?” Govind asked her kindly.

She shook her head, blinking in an effort to regain her composure. “No, she, she, she, it’s her favourite. She might have a little, maybe.” She thanked him again and hurried out. The dish steamed in her hands in the frosty air as she wove between the abandoned cars in the parking lot, making her way down to the endless line of cars on the road.

Most of the cars were trying to drive south, to warmer parts, using any road they could find, clogging even this local highway. The natural gas lines were long since shut off, which combined with increasingly frequent blackouts and shortages of heating oil, convinced people that they should rethink the notion of hunkering down in their unheated houses until the cure for the new epidemic could be found.

\-----

Govind and his family formed the nucleus of a small community that had taken up residence in the George Washington strip mall, salvaging chain link fence to surround most of the shops, and creating a further buffer by dragging abandoned cars into the parking lot and around the chainlink as a barrier. The Curry Palace alone still had its shopfront open to the public, in addition to cooking the community's food. 

The Shop-Rite had attempted to forestall panic hoarding by keeping limited hours and limiting quantities, but closed entirely after somebody tried to ram-raid their pickup truck through the front window. The windows were boarded up, the lights were kept off, but the fridges and freezers were still going. The last manager had given up trying to contact the head office, and handed the keys to Govind before disappearing. The owner of Trattoria Alfonso had closed his shop and fled to join his relatives in Atlanta almost as soon as the Centers for Disease Control issued its first warnings about cases of the so-called “Spanish Rash.” The George Washington laundromat and Deirdre’s Hallmark Shoppe had been locked shortly after, although Deirdre herself was part of the community that had stayed behind inside the chainlink. The 7-Eleven had been broken into and looted of its cigarettes and porno magazines, before Govind and the community moved to secure it. The manager of the CVS pharmacy had confronted raiders attempting a similar break-in, but she had been among the first local victims of the epidemic. The Garden Ho’s garden store had closed when the epidemic started, since it was the off-season anyway, but the owner and many of the workers were now part of the community.

As the colder weather came and took hold, they took turns on the watch and on looking after the sick and dying. The internet crawled to a halt, the TV stations and syndicated FM radio stations stopped broadcasting, but the AM radio stations could still be tuned in. Worse yet, some of the frequencies were given over to static and fractured sounds of people calling for help. Scattered independent AM stations, in Canada, around the Eastern seaboard, out to the Midwest, tried to disseminate information as well as they could. One by one, the stations broadcast one last appeal for help before they, too, fell to silence or static.

\------

“That’s not how this is going to happen.” Govind stated it flatly. He ignored the snowflakes accumulating on his beanie and coat as he faced the man on the other side of the chain-link fence.

“I’m the one with the gun! _I’m_ the one who says how this happens! Now MOVE, or I’ll blow you away!” The man’s eyes above his bandana mask were wild and his hands were shaking as he pointed a hunting rifle at Govind’s chest. The eyes of the woman and the children behind him glittered above their masks, wide with fear and hunger.

“Please spare your ammo, we will need it elsewhere, thank you,” Govind continued, “Now please come inside and have a cup of tea and something to eat.” He kept his hands at his sides and his posture open.

The man didn’t take his eyes or his aim off Govind as he frowned. “Jeff,” the woman behind him began, but he cut her off with a hiss. She paused only a moment before she began again, “Hey Mister … I’m sorry, I forgot your name. But, do you mean that?”

“Yes,” Govind said calmly, the breath coming from behind his mask steaming his eyeglasses. “If you shoot me, who will open the fence for you?” He waved a gloved hand at the chain and padlock around the door to the fence. Jeff’s eyes flicked to the woman and back to Govind. “We can accommodate you, but not if you want to rob us.”

“Just so you know, I’m sick,” the woman spoke again, “so is my husband, and so are some of my kids. We…” Her shoulders slumped. “We can’t come in there. We were just,” her voice broke, “going to get some supplies and go.”

“Dammit, Maria,” Jeff began walking backward toward her, while still keeping the rifle pointed in Govind’s general direction.

Govind nodded. He knew from experience not to tell them about his two surviving sons on the rooftop behind him, keeping Jeff and his family in their sniper sights. He put his hands in his pockets as they talked to one another in low voices. “Also,” he called over, “I have your usual palak paneer, medium, butter chicken, mild, and 4 naan. Unfortunately delivery service is not available, but you can have it here, you don’t have to have it to go this time.”

Maria cried out, and Jeff dropped the gun’s barrel toward the ground.

“Do you still have your truck? You can bring that inside too,” Govind called over, “bring it around next to the Shop-Rite loading dock.” He stepped over to the chain link fence and unlocked it to admit the family. “We could use some good off-road vehicles.”

“We?” Jeff asked timorously, as he dug in his pocket for the keys to his nearby truck. Maria ushered the bundled children inside the fence hurriedly, while she had the opportunity.

“Yes, there are a few of us in here looking after the place.”

\------------

As winter took hold, the flow of occupied cars slowed to a trickle. The electricity supply to the food stores was kept going using gas-powered generators. The community of the George Washington strip mall buried its many dead outside the chain link, until they started getting attacked by something other than human raiders.


	2. Rachel's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the "Spanish Rash" struck down her partner, Rachel made a pact. She didn't follow through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some may find this chapter a little intense, as it features trollification and bad driving practices.

“They sound so lost.”

The words came out as a croak, startling Rachel. She interrupted rubbing calamine lotion onto the rash on Shel’s back. The lotion didn’t really do anything useful, but it made them both feel like they were doing _something._ “Sorry, what?”

“Radio. Turn th’ radio off.” Shel weakly waved a hand.

“The radio’s not on, Shel,” Rachel frowned. There wasn’t really much point in keeping the radio on anymore. One of the stations that was still on the air had a looping playlist of twenty songs, interspersed with the same advertisements for Columbus Day sales, long after Columbus Day had come and gone. The talk radio station was only playing podcasts of past interviews and not opening their phone lines. Rachel had found a college radio station that was still live, but she had stopped tuning in after a young presenter stuttered and dissolved into tears as she noticed the telltale rash on her shoulder during her broadcast. Her on-air wailing had set the newly-diagnosed Shel off, and it had taken until the next day before Rachel and Shel could both calm down enough to discuss their situation rationally.

That had been nearly three weeks ago. They’d read the news reports before the websites stopped updating. They knew the prognosis for them both, enough to be aware of the clock that started ticking when Shel fell ill. Together, they decided against attempting to drive away, and made their preparations. They had made a pact.

Rachel had gone out to get what groceries she could and filled up the car with gas. She bought a length of ducting hose for a clothes dryer and a roll of duct tape, the last such roll on the shelf. The young man behind the counter rang up her purchase with dull eyes that wouldn’t meet hers, and uttered an automatic, “Have a nice day.” The ducting and tape stayed in the back seat of the car when Rachel closed and locked the roller door to the garage.

They stopped going to work, not that their employers really noticed anymore. Suddenly bereft of the driving force in her life, Rachel found herself staring out the window when she wasn’t nursing the increasingly ill Shel. She thought she would write good-bye letters to her family, but the legal pad sat untouched on her lap.

Now Shel was starting to talk about hearing voices. Rachel didn’t remember that being listed among the symptoms of the "Spanish Rash," maybe it was just the fever talking. Shel shifted position to fix haunted eyes onto Rachel.

“Rachel. D’y’think…it’s time?”

“No!” Rachel’s cry came unbidden, without thought. “I mean, oh Shel,” she screwed the top back onto the calamine lotion and got off the bed to wash her hands. _I’m not ready,_ she thought, _I’m not ready!_ “Not yet,” she said aloud. She dried her hands on her thighs as she sat on the bed again. Seeing Shel wince as she sat, Rachel cajoled, “we’re okay, bubbie, we have some time still. I’m not even sick yet, just kinda tired, is all.” She smiled wanly, but her partner’s eyes were closed.

“So cold, can I go home,” Shel whispered, shifting position uncomfortably.

Rachel hastened to pull the blanket up, but she couldn’t get it up to Shel’s shoulder. She gave it an extra tug and it came untucked from Shel’s feet. Shel gave a hoarse cry, and Rachel rushed to apologise, while staring at the feet protruding from under the offending blanket, “Sorry, sorry, the uh, blanket, is like, shrunken all the sudden?” Shel’s toes were pointed like a ballet dancer’s. In that position, they looked much longer, and Rachel was suddenly transfixed by the oddity of them. They _were_ longer.

Another grunt and Rachel looked up at Shel’s face, now bright red and almost unrecognisable, twisted in pain against the headboard. A quick glance confirmed the pointed feet were protruding off the other end of the bed.

Clutching the blanket to herself, Rachel screamed and ran out of the bedroom and down the corridor. She fumbled for her purse, almost tripping herself on the blanket as she grabbed it and the coat lying next to it. Without thinking, she yanked open the door to the garage and stood in front of the car, screaming as she fumbled for her keys. She started to climb into the car, then got out again to press the button to open the roller doors. She could hear something splintering behind her as she panted “c’mon c’mon c’mon” to encourage the garage door to open faster. As soon as the door just cleared the car’s roofline, she pressed the accelerator but didn’t move immediately. Cursing, she pressed the pedal all the way down, and the car surged forward with a jerk as it came loose from…what? What was holding the car back?

As she lurched down the slope of the driveway, Rachel could see in her rearview mirror, Shel silhouetted in the light coming from the kitchen and into the garage. At least, she though it was Shel, who else could it be? But what she saw couldn't be Shel. Her heart hammered as she drove down the road away from her tidy home, thinking in her panic, _I left the door open! And the lights on! Somebody can come do something horrible to Shel!_ She couldn’t reconcile the shape she saw in her rearview mirror with her sick partner lying in bed.

Rachel drove for quite some time on automatic pilot, and found herself pulling into stopped traffic at the lights on Route 22. The rhythm of the windshield wipers wiping away the sleet calmed her somewhat, until she noticed that she had sat at the intersection through three changes of lights. Peering at the cars around her, she suddenly noticed they were empty and abandoned. Cursing, she pulled out into the oncoming lane and wove between stopped cars.

She dimly realised that her teeth were chattering, and her back window was partially open. _Of course, duh. We were going to feed the hose through there,_ she rolled her eyes as she attempted to close the window. There was something stuck in it, not allowing the window to close. “No use burning out the mechanism,” she said aloud, before feeling silly for talking to herself. Pulling over, Rachel leaned back to see what was jammed there; she started screaming again as she recognised the glint of Shel’s rings on the hand gripped onto the inside of the frame. 

She faced forward again and gunned the engine, causing the car to fishtail before it found traction on the slick road. After that, she drove in a panic, wrong way around jug handles, wrong side of the road, detouring through parking lots in front of stores that had their windows broken out, onto side streets and eventually back roads. As she drove into the night, she avoided stumbling deer, shambling things that might have been dogs, and elongated shapes that may once have been human. She took to hollering at the top of her lungs, “Oh my god! The F***ing Zombie Apocalypse was supposed to be a stupid f***ing joke! This can’t be happening!”

She had to drive around something that took up nearly the entire width of Interstate 78. Whatever it was, the top of it was moving, but the bottom flanks were littered with crashed cars. Rachel was never able to say in later years exactly where she had driven to avoid the giant, just that she screamed curses at it as she barrelled past.

She saw no other moving cars, and nothing open. She had no idea how much had changed in the three weeks she'd spent sequestered at home with Shel. When telling her story later, her listeners were stunned that she still had electricity, heat and running water at that stage.

Some hours later, she was driving on a dark highway somewhere, she had no idea where, hoarse from screaming. The hopelessness of her situation, coupled with the realisation that she had broken her promise and left her beloved to face death alone, found her sobbing and shaking. The sleet was coming down harder. The fact that she still hadn’t stopped to dislodge Shel’s hand from the open window meant the car was still freezing despite the car’s heater pumping hot air onto her feet, which were still clad in the bedroom slippers she’d fled in. She had no food, no water, no place to go. Worst of all, she could swear she smelled curry; the smell tormented her in reminding her how hungry she was.

Then Rachel saw the small light in the buildings up ahead, and her headlights picked out the sign, “George Washington Shopping Centre.” She could definitely smell curry.


	3. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel is allowed inside the compound and gets a look around.

With a bowl of chicken masala warming both her hands and her spirit, Rachel followed the man who had introduced himself as Govind through part of the mall, through doorways hewn out through the cement blocks between the stores. Her sense of unreality was heightened as the flashlight Govind carried dimly illuminated their way through a darkened pharmacy, convenience store, laundromat, and then through a supermarket, with an eerie hum emanating from somewhere inside it. Cardboard cartoon Hallowe’en bats hung from the ceiling over the silent checkout area, along with real cobwebs. Govind was explaining that they were taking in anyone who wanted shelter, whether they were ill or not, as they had some supplies that would last them a while until order was restored.  
  
Following Govind out of the supermarket, Rachel reeled at the scene before her. Even though the room was mostly cleared of table and chairs, it was still obviously an Italian restaurant, with flocked velvet wallpaper and candles flickering in the wall sconces. Pictures of the Coliseum in Rome, singing gondolieri and smiling grandmothers holding enormous bowls of pasta adorned the walls.  
  
However, most of the maroon carpet was covered with a ragtag collection of cushions and blankets. A few dozen people afflicted with various stages of illness lay upon them. A statue of a smiling cherub was shunted to one side on a table, to leave room for an assortment of boxes of medications. Cooking pots with water and cloths in them were scattered about the room. Most bizarrely, there was a stack of several cases of soda near the center of the room, topped with half a box of melting ice cream, and with a cardboard box of empty cans next to it. Rachel retched as the smell of sweat and vomit overpowered the smell of curry that pervaded the rest of the complex.  
  
As they walked in, a woman with livid Rash on her face and scalp looked up from the man whose brow she’d been mopping. She nodded dully as Govind introduced Rachel, then wrung out her cloth to apply to the man’s face again as he stirred, muttering. “We’ve lost Harley and both babies,” she gestured at a corner of the room. She carried on talking to Govind, but Rachel had backed away in horror and fled back into the dark supermarket. Disoriented, she stood inside the frigid cavernous room, clutching her bowl of curry, unsure how to proceed.  
  
That woman wasn’t wearing a mask! None of them were wearing masks. But then, thought Rachel, neither was she. She’d fled without one. Govind had found her wild-eyed at the chain link fence outside the Curry Palace and had brought her inside the fragrant restaurant. An elderly woman who introduced herself as Nisha gently asked her some questions, but Rachel was too traumatised to concentrate on what she was saying. Nisha shrugged, ladled out a bowl of curry from the pot she had on the stove, and handed it to the wondering Rachel. Someone else had wrapped her in a puffy coat that was too large but delightfully warm. Only now, as she stood in a dark supermarket with cold seeping through her wet bedroom slippers, did it occur to her that this coat may have belonged to someone who was now dead of the ‘Spanish Rash.’ Shouldn’t they have burned it or something?  
  
_Shel._ She closed her eyes tightly, until purple and blue circles danced across her retinas. _I’m so sorry. I should have stayed with you._ Now where would she go? She didn’t even know where she was now; she hadn’t thought to ask.  
  
Footsteps behind her broke her chain of thought. Govind and his flashlight had returned, and she followed him back through the mall, to the Curry Palace. There were others huddled at tables throughout the restaurant, passing around baskets of fragrant chapatis, but only some low conversation. A few of them looked up at Rachel with vaguely curious expressions and curt nods as she made eye contact. Sitting down at an empty table, she picked up a spoon and tasted some of her masala; it was delicious.  
She fell asleep in the chair as exhaustion overtook her, barely noticing as she was helped to a thin mattress on the floor and covered with several coats in lieu of a blanket.  
  
\--------------

She woke up with a crick in her neck and the sound of wind and sleet howling above her. Running a thickened tongue around the disgusting taste in her mouth (how had she not brushed her teeth? she wondered), she tried to reorient herself. There was wan grey light coming in through a gap in the plywood covering the shop windows, punctuated with rainbows from strings of crystals hanging from the ceiling. She could see a deep blue carpet strewn with heaps of clothing and people, leading her gaze to a shelving unit on the far wall, which was crowded with dusty figurines of wizards, fairies, cherubs, and dragons.  
  
Sitting up and massaging feeling back into her arm, she stated to no one in particular, “What kind of hippie hell is this?”  
  
A teenage girl wearing a fluoro orange beanie answered, “I hate to break it to you, lady, but you’re not dead yet.”  
  
A snort in the gloom riposted, “Give it a minute.”  
  
Another man’s voice laughed before lapsing into a racking cough, “Excuse me, do you have a reservation for Alfonso’s Funeral Parlor?” Then wheezing, “Shit. Sorry, honey.”  
  
A woman’s voice grunted next to him, “Jackass.” Came the sounds of someone shifting, and Rachel saw a pile of clothing fall apart, revealing a woman shaking her head and scratching her neck as she sat up. “So, hello,” she called across to Rachel, “you were kind of out of it when Govind brought you in. I’m LaTisha. How you doing?”  
  
“I’m fine, how are you?” Rachel answered automatically.  
  
“That’s bullshit, but yeah, I get that.” She pulled herself to her knees and prepared to get up, but then sat back down with a groan. The man next to her stroked her shoulder in support, but she winced and flinched away. “Owww.” He apologised again, and she laid her hand on his. “Nah, s‘okay. Stupid rash.”  
  
Another voice emerged from the shadows, “Hey, Tyrell, you on digging today?”  
  
“Yeah.” Coughing, the man comforting LaTisha got up, offering his hand to help her up. “I still can. Nice day for it. Shit.” He coughed some more. "I'll have to dig my own while I'm out there, man."  
  
"Shut up." LaTisha took Tyrell's proffered hand and struggled to her feet, bits of loose clothing falling off of her as she stood. Rachel got up as well, looking at the motley array of coats and sweaters that had been piled onto her. The girl with the fluoro beanie was sitting with her back against a shelving unit, cradling a child to her chest, her shoulders heaving soundlessly. LaTisha called across to her, “Angelina?” The girl raised her tear-streaked face briefly before burying it back against the child’s head. “Aw, honey,” she rushed across to the pair.  
  
Rachel shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, trying to figure out what to do. She could see the Indian restaurant through the bead curtain covering the hewn doorway. As grey and grim as the day was, light still flooded into the restaurant lobby through the glass door, which had been left uncovered. Standing at the door, she looked out past the chainlink fencing, out to the parking lot crammed with cars shoved together.  
  
Her own car was right out front, where she’d left it. She suddenly realised she’d left it unlocked, with her purse still inside. She must have _really_ been out of it. There were all sick people here, she had to get away! She suddenly was convinced that she had to get out, or she would die here with these people. With a cry she went outside but stopped before leaving the shelter of the overhang covering the walkway in front of the stores. The chainlink was closed, with a stout chain and padlock wrapped around the opening. She would have to get somebody to let her out.  
  
She was startled by the chainlink rattling, and looked across the parking lot to the fence in front of the supermarket. There was a cluster of bundled-up people with backpacks huddled there, with somebody trying to climb up the fence. “Hey, cut it out!,” she yelled without thinking, “Stop it! Get offa there!” They turned masked faces to Rachel and the climber dropped from the fence, squatting in a ready position. Rachel started running along the front of the shops, but Govind had come out from the supermarket end and held up his hands to them. Rachel could hear him welcoming them and she stopped in her tracks, as he pointed back toward his restaurant. As they all walked toward her, Rachel pulled the borrowed coat around herself.  
  
As they reached the padlocked portion, Rachel pulled the coat over her head to block out the sleet and met them there. As Govind unlocked and unwound the chain, Rachel said, “Listen, thanks very much, but I gotta get going now.”  
  
He blinked at her from behind his thick glasses. “Are you certain?” The party with the backpacks stared at her and back at Govind. In the light, he looked smaller and older than he had appeared to Rachel the night before; he was middle-aged, with his rain-slicked hair greying at the temples.  
  
“Um, yeah, I’ve got a,” she fumbled for a good lie, “My sister! I have a sister, I can stay with her.”  
  
Govind looked sadly at her but held open the gate to let the people in. One of them peered at Rachel, taking in her bedroom slippers, and slipped inside. “Do you have enough food?,” Govind asked, “maybe we can find some shoes for you?”  
  
Rachel slipped outside the fence, “Yeah, yeah! I’m fine, really, I just,” she opened her car door, “I really gotta go.” She slipped into the driver’s seat and shut the door, noting with relief that her purse still sat on the front seat, intact. She fished in her pants pocket for her keys, when she suddenly realized she hadn’t ever asked where she was. She took her phone out of her purse to check her map app; it was on and still had some charge, but there weren’t any points of connectivity. She also realized the phone’s charger and the spare charger in her briefcase were both back in her home. She turned the phone off. She looked around, at the Shop-Rite, and the shops; none of them had any indication of the name of the place. The sign at the entrance said “George Washington Shopping Centre,” but that didn’t really narrow it down either.  
  
She’d just have to chance reading signs to find her way to…where? _Away, just, away from here,_ she answered herself. She turned the car on and twisted around to check her clearance for backing up, when she spotted the still-open window and the hand still wedged in it. The terror she’d felt the night before all came back to her, along with the memory of the horrors darting across the road in her path.  
  
She shifted the car back into Park, got out of the car, ran around to the rear passenger side and tried to dislodge the grisly hand without actually touching it, but it wouldn’t budge. She was obliged to reach inside and prise the fingers off the inside of the window frame where they’d gripped, and then retched as she threw the hand away from her. It landed somewhere under the car barricade. Sobbing and retching, Rachel ran back into the driver’s seat and shut the window, then shifted the car into Reverse again. Droplets of sleet ran off her hair and down the back of her neck.  
  
Govind still stood at the chain link, watching her. Deflated, Rachel put the car back into Park and turned it off, then slumped against the steering wheel and sobbed.


	4. A Drive in the Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another scavenging expedition.

\-------

Jeff chewed his Pop-Tart thoughtfully, concentrating on making his jaw go up and down. He had to work to keep going. Pity he couldn’t really taste it much anymore, this used to be his favourite flavour. What did it matter now if he ate junk food? His teeth were coming loose, and it wasn’t from the stupid Pop-Tarts and ice cream like he’d been hearing his whole life, it was from the rash all over his gums.

All of the fresh food, like the fish and dairy products, had been eaten first, along with the most delicate produce. Some of the fruit was made into jam before it went bad. Shop-Rite still had one freezer going using a generator, but who knew how long it would last? Some of the other people were looking at other ways at preserving what they had while they could.

Jeff didn’t have the energy for any of that. He had been going out with some of the others to try to find useful stuff like ammo, gas, and blankets, even though he couldn’t drive himself any more. He was one of a handful left who was from the area, knew where to look, and where the roads all led. All of the stores nearby had been looted, so they were going around the back roads. If the roads weren’t blocked off with abandoned cars, they were checking the houses. He still wasn’t used to finding people he knew dead in their beds, but he had gotten over feeling bad about ‘borrowing’ the useful items from their houses. He was wearing someone else’s jeans, since his could no longer be cinched around what was left of him. Another woman was wearing Maria’s coat now.

Deirdre, as the crew leader, motioned for Jeff that it was time to go out for the day. He’d been hoping to talk to his surviving daughter Angelina before he left, maybe take her along, but she’d been sticking close to his next-door neighbour’s youngest, Benjy. He’d promised his sick neighbour to take the boy away, but Benjy came down with the Rash anyway. Angelina kept him with her, even though the poor thing clearly should be over in the Italian restaurant with the others who were too far gone.

He didn’t know how long he had, until he had to move into “Alfonso’s Funeral Parlor” himself, now that Maria and his baby Rosita were gone. He’d been taking some of the various remedies they could scavenge from the pharmacy, but none of it was doing any good. He’d watched every person who had the rash flu get weaker and die. He’d been hoping that the cough he’d gotten was just an early-winter cold, but he ended up with the rash himself just after they got here. There was no word on a cure coming to save them, to save him. He hoped Angelina wouldn’t get sick too; she was all he had left.

He’d been drilling Angelina on the use and cleaning of his rifles. She’d been going hunting with him since she was quite young, and she knew how to use them. She was as good a shot as Govind’s boys, or anybody. Well, the one boy anyway, the other one went crazy, hearing voices and yelling that ‘they’ were coming after him, and he ran off screaming into the woods. Govind had quietly asked Jeff to keep an eye out for Sanjay. They’d seen some weird things in the woods, and had to drive away quickly from some of them, but they hadn’t seen Sanjay.

Jeff threw down the rest of the Pop-Tart as he rose to go, but then thought the better of it. Maria would want him to eat. Angelina would want him to eat. He picked it up again, and tucked an extra one into the chest pocket of his hunting jacket. He tried his best to chew another bite as they went out into the sleet to the chainlink, where Govind was already waiting for them. He was startled to see Maria in the late-model Audi parked outside the enclosure, but was crushed anew when he realised it wasn’t her, it was just the woman wearing her coat. He turned his head away as he slipped out to the truck.

“Okay, Jeff, where we goin’ today?” Deirdre opened the passenger door for Jeff. She was wearing full makeup and jewellery, and to see her smile, you would never know that she was preparing to spend a sleeting November day hunting for salvage in her dead neighbor’s houses. “Jesse found a car with gas in it, so we should have enough to get us almost to Pennsy and back.” One of the refugee teenagers had taken it upon themself to ride their bicycle around the roads, scouting the area and scavenging gas to keep the freezer and Jeff’s truck going.

Jeff nodded, “Good. I’ve been wanting to see Ryan out past the Villa, see what he knows.” It was unspoken between them to add, ‘if he’s alive.’ “Ryan’s got an awesome collection of hunting and fishing stuff - bows, camo clothes, guns, a deer blind, rods and lures, the works. Maybe him and his folks will want to come back with us.” He snorted as he hauled himself painfully into the truck. “’Course, he could be out in the woods, too. Not like him to miss deer season, epidemic or no epidemic.”

Deirdre strapped herself in. “Well, it’s just us today, everybody else is on digging, car hauling, or helping Nisha. We’ll have the room to bring his folks back.” They discussed Jesse’s scouting report about the state of the roads, and set off. They knew the convoluted route they would take in the immediate vicinity of the strip mall well and Deirdre navigated the SUV with ease.

Further afield, they met up with a carload of refugees, whom they pointed towards their settlement, reassuring them that they would be taken in even though they were sick. The refugees were fleeing from one of the small towns on their route; they told a story about a monster that filled a whole block of garden apartments, killing anything that came near it. The car’s driver was wearing a blue football helmet with a lightning bolt on it; she looked up at Jeff with haunted eyes. “You _sure_ they’re going to want us and our crazy cat?” Sure enough, there were angry yowls coming from a cat carrier in the back of the car. They shook their heads in disbelief, but noted down Jeff’s directions to the strip mall.

As they drove onward, Deirdre commented, “My cat’s going kind of nuts, too, you notice that?”

Jeff shook his head. “I haven’t seen her, I kinda thought she ran away or something. I didn’t want to, you know, bum you out or anything.”

“Well, that’s just it. That cat’s been living in this mall for years, since she was a kitten. I started feeding her, and she just adopted me. Nothing bothers her, she’s used to all the cars and people all the time. She was okay when we first put up the fence and I stopped going home. She was all cuddly with me when I slept in the shop. But after everybody else started moving in there too, she starts freaking out and getting all hissy with people. But get this – she only freaked out at the sick people, the ones with the Spanish Rash.” Deirdre shifted into off-road low gear and slowly drove across a once-manicured lawn to avoid a pile-up of cars blocking a culvert. “Anyway, she’s okay with me, and she’s okay with Govind, and maybe a coupl’a others, but once somebody gets sick, she goes and hides in the back of the laundromat. It’s really weird.”

“Whadda, you think your _cat_ knows who’s got the Spanish Rash? Shit,” Jeff snorted. He shook his head and looked out the window at the bleak grey landscape, with the sleet mostly having washed away the early winter snowfall. “You been smelling too much of your incense, man.” He looked back at her quickly and apologised, “Sorry, Deirdre.”

She shot him a mock-baleful glance as she drove down the side of the railroad tracks. “Nah, s’okay fine. It _is_ weird, like I said.” They fell silent as they emerged from the woods and drove past the township’s elementary school, now blackened and half-ruined.

They’d heard the story of the fight that had broken out between two rival gangs of refugees trying to shelter in the school, but no one knew how both gangs managed to be inside the school when an explosion destroyed the wing. Both the survivor of the explosion and the person to whom they’d told the story were dead now anyway.

Jeff nodded off and Deirdre drove on. Deirdre let him sleep; he wasn’t going to be able to come out much more often. He wore his beanie all the time now, since his hair had mostly fallen out due to the Rash covering his scalp. She remembered how that felt, having survived a bout with cancer and two rounds of chemotherapy herself a few years prior. That made her frown as she remembered that she was supposed to be due for her annual exam next month. Or not – who knew if things would be back to normal by then?

As expected, the highway was clogged with empty cars, and she was obliged to weave in and out of people’s driveways to go forward. All of the houses were dark, many had broken windows or gaping doors. One had an oddly overturned car in the driveway, forcing Deirdre to drive through its front garden. She winced as she mouthed ‘sorry’ at the house and its unseen occupants.

She saw the smoke rising from the town as she crested the next hill, and was thankful to the refugees for having warned her. They hadn’t yet ventured this far in these expeditions. She briefly mused that just last month, she wouldn’t have thought twice about driving to Morristown or Allentown, but now just the next town was a major expedition. Her thoughts were disturbed as she turned onto her detour, which was now blocked by a gushing river.

She woke up Jeff; he groggily gave her instructions about driving through it. The truck was outfitted with a snorkel, he told her it would be fine. As she piloted the vehicle through, Jeff guessed it was just a hydrant having gotten knocked over. They were both quiet as they surveyed the destruction in the town. “That’s not gangs,” Jeff whispered, “these houses look like they were, like, ripped up by Godzilla or something.”

A dog stood in the road, howling at them. Deirdre slowed the truck to a halt, but the dog wouldn’t move. “Poor baby, I bet he’s scared. Should we-"

“Stay in the car,” Jeff said sternly. “Just drive around it.” Deirdre obeyed, but softly apologised to the dog as she drove onto the sidewalk of the narrow street. “Can you try the tracks again?,” Jeff asked. The railroad crossing was blocked with train wreckage. They both swore at it and backtracked to find another road across, but the way behind them was blocked now as well, by …something moving. Jeff clutched his head and screamed, which set Deirdre screaming as well. She stopped the truck to tend him, but he screamed, “NOOO! Gotta go! Gotta go!”

Deirdre reacted quickly and surged forward in a panic, swerving off the street and down the side of the railroad tracks, chanting “ohmyGod, ohmyGod” as she avoided or drove over train flotsam. Blindly she picked a street that looked comparatively placid and drove into it, pulling over and turning off the truck as she slumped against the wheel, weeping.

Jeff had stopped screaming and was now only breathing heavily. “What. The. Total F***,” he finally muttered. As Deirdre turned her tear-streaked face toward him, he frowned, “they were talking, like, in my head. I don’t even know _who,_ but it was like a whole bunch of people all moaning and stuff, and they were cold and lost and stuff. Shit.”

“Should we go home?,” Deirdre whimpered.

Jeff heaved a sigh and let his hands fall heavily onto his lap. “Nah. I really want to go see Ryan now.” Deirdre nodded sullenly, but turned the truck back on and drove forward slowly. Jeff mused how much good Ryan’s hunting bow would do against ….whatever that was. What was that thing where somebody could talk to your mind in the movies? Telepathy, that was the word. Without thinking, he blurted out, “Hey, maybe it’s aliens.”

“What?”

“Well, like, maybe it’s an alien invasion here,” the words sounded ludicrous said aloud. “Or something,” he ended lamely, “nah, forget it. I dunno.”

“D’ya think?,” Deirdre sniffed. She looked around the truck’s dashboard for tissues, but grimaced as she wiped her tears and runny nose on her sleeve instead. “I dunno, “ she agreed, “maybe. And they’re making us all sick to make it easier?”

Jeff swore, and they fell silent for several minutes as they passed dark houses, the truck’s windshield wipers keeping rhythm. Some of the houses had sodden Hallowe’en decorations still hanging on their porches and fences, torn and twisting in the wind and sleet. He frowned, “Deirdre, how come you’re not sick?”

She shook her head but kept her eyes on the road. “I have no idea. Me, and Govind, and a couple of the others. I don’t know why, we just aren’t.” She gave a wry snort. “Clean living. I gave up smoking when I had cancer, maybe. Incense. Curry. Who knows?”

“Ha, yeah. Maybe it’s those crystals and wizards and stuff in your shop, faking out the aliens!”

“Shut up,” she allowed him a lopsided grin, then sighed. “Isn’t helping everybody sleeping in there now.” It was true, nobody was even wearing masks anymore inside the mall enclosure. They had initially tried quarantining all the sick people inside the Trattoria Alfonso, but it was just too hard to keep people separated as the enclave grew. Now everybody who still could, helped out.

They arrived at Ryan’s house on its back road without further incident, but Jeff’s face fell as they looked at the dark and shuttered house. A scattering of sodden rolled-up newspapers littered the empty driveway. “They left before they even stopped delivering the newspapers?,” Jeff groaned as he stiffly got out. He stepped off the driveway and into the bed of pruned rosebushes at the front of the house, to peer into a window pane. “Can’t see nuthin’.”

Deirdre had picked up one of the white-painted rocks that lined the edge of the driveway and hefted it, before showing it to Jeff with a questioning look. He sagged and looked around at the house in anguish. Putting his hands into his jeans pockets, he shrugged and turned to face the road. Deirdre walked up the steps to the front door and used the rock to break the window next to the deadbolt. She paused, but no alarm rang. She put her hand into her sleeve to protect her hand as she delicately reached in to turn the deadbolt and the doorknob from the inside. “Hey, Jeff, we’re in.”

“Shit.” But Jeff turned and followed her into the house. “He keeps the stuff in the basement, just around there.” The house was tidy, the television and appliances all unplugged, the refrigerator empty and standing open. “They weren’t planning on coming back right away,” he remarked.

Deirdre had gone down the stairs, shining her flashlight around. “Hey, Jeff, there’s nothing down here,” she called up, “at least nothing like hunting equipment. Do we need a pool skimmer?”

“He doesn’t have a pool, what’s he got a pool skimmer for?” There was no answer. “Deirdre?” He steeled himself to walk down the stairs into the dark, but was met by Deirdre coming quickly up.

“Heeey, I got a knife anyway,” she cheerfully held up a hunting knife. There was something too wide and cheerful about the rictus of her smile.

“That’s Ryan’s best knife. He woulda taken that, if nothing else,” Jeff peered at her. “What's going on?”

She swallowed, “He’s down there, Jeff.” She raised her hand, “but don’t go.” She put her hand on his shoulder lightly. “There’s nothing else here, let’s go. ‘Less you want to check the rest of the house?”

He took the knife reverently. They stared at each other hollowly for several seconds. Jeff finally spoke, “Yeah.” 

Deirdre went to the kitchen and started opening cabinets, while Jeff went back to the bedrooms. They were all nicely tidy, although dusty, with the closets and bureaus mostly emptied of clothing. At least they could use the bedding, he thought, and bent over to strip the blanket off the bed.

Deirdre was startled by a loud thump from the back of the house. “Jeff?” Getting no reply, she rushed to the back.

Jeff was crumpled on the bedroom floor, half covered over by the blankets he was pulling off the bed. She turned him over, alarmed to see a red stain spreading over his jacket and shirt front. Screaming his name, she opened his shirt, but the sound died on her lips when she saw there was no wound, just the gaping pustules of the Rash.

Jeff groggily opened his eyes, and was startled to see Deirdre bending over him with a panicked expression on her make-up-smeared face. “Musta fainted,” he muttered, then awkwardly sat up. Looking down at his open shirt, he cursed at the red stain. He fished an exploded package out of his jacket pocket. Deirdre sat down on the floor heavily as she stared dumbfoundedly at the red jam dripping off the package. Jeff spat, “Dammit, I was saving that Pop-Tart to eat later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ba-dum-tish* Perhaps I should apologise for ending the chapter with a joke instead of a cliffhanger?
> 
> Also, I deliberately tried to use natural speech patterns here, to more accurately reflect the local spoken usage. This is not to suggest that these are uneducated bumpkins, as much as realising that normal conversation doesn't always follow grammatical forms. (Now, I just have to hope I remember to do that throughout the rest of the piece. a_a )


	5. Melissa's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The backstory behind the lady in the football helmet Deirdre and Jeff encountered last chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a real downer of a chapter, please be warned. It introduces the backstory behind the lady, but hers is not a happy one. It mostly serves to show another facet of society breaking down - that period of time between funeral customs as we know them now, and the glimpses of bodies simply left in their beds that we see in canon of the comic.

“You are going. to. school, and that’s final!”

“Mommm,” Jennifer whined as her mother pulled the blankets off her bed, “I seriously feel like crap, really! You can take my temperature if you don’t believe me!”

“I don’t care if you have the Black Plague, you are _not_ going to miss _one more day_ of school,” Melissa shot back. “You’ll just have to take some drugs and get on with it. Chop chop!”

Jennifer groaned, then let out a scream of frustration into her pillow. She stomped to the bathroom and ran the water. Melissa popped her head into the bathroom, “You don’t have enough time to take one of those half-hour jobbies either!”

Jennifer shrieked as she pushed her mother out and slammed the door. “DO NOT walk in on me! That is NOT OKAY!”

“We’re not in Spain anymore, Jenns, we have to get back on New Jersey time,” her mother called through the door.

“I can’t hear you!,” Jennifer shouted back, before a coughing fit took her. As she stepped into the shower, she yelled out, “You hear that? That was me _dying,_ thank you! But noooo, I’ll go to school and infect everyone, my moooom says it’s okay!” She pulled the shower curtain across the bar a little too roughly, knocking the shampoo off the edge of the tub and onto her toe. She let out an owww and rubbed the offended toes.

“What was that, Jenns,” Melissa called louder to be heard over the water, “you all right?”

“Eewww, I’m still all red and sunburned!, Jennifer hollered back. “Water’s too hot!” Melissa raised her eyebrows; it was unlike Jenn to complain about the water being anything less than steamy. She was also out of the shower in record time, mere minutes later. Melissa shrugged. Maybe the messages about saving resources were finally starting to take hold? Progress?

At the breakfast table, Jennifer tried again. “Mom, I emailed my homework in while we were in Spain, I’m not that far behind. And, I really don’t feel good. Why do I have to go?” She put her spoon back into her cereal bowl and stuck out her tongue at it.

“Because I can’t take another day off work,” Melissa tried honesty as a tactic. She looked over her reading glasses at her daughter, “and I’m not leaving you home alone.”

Her younger daughter Lauren piped up, “I can’t _wait_ to go show my friends my cool shells and stuff from Spain.”

Jennifer grumped, “Let’s go to Spain, she said. We get cheaper rates in the off-season, she said. It’ll be a learning experience more valuable than a couple weeks of school, she said.”

Melissa matched her daughter’s mocking tone. “You seemed to think it was a great idea while we were there. ‘Oh mom, this is the best vacay evah!,’ she said. "Let's take a selfie by this weird house,' she said. ‘Everyone’s sooo jealous,’ she said.” She rolled her eyes in exaggerated drama.

“It was.” Jennifer rose sullenly from the table. “I’m sorry, I’m just still all sunburned and stuff.” She scraped the remains of her cereal into the garbage disposal. Melissa noticed she hadn’t actually eaten very much of it. “I’m already missing the food,” she sighed.

“Jetlagged, too, by the sound of it,” Melissa nodded, “if it makes you feel any better, I am too.” She put away her reading glasses and rose from the table as well. “Lauren, finish up and put the cat out, we’re outta here.”

“I’ll get the cat,” Jennifer volunteered. “C’mere, Lolcat. Hey, pudder,” she bent down and held her hand out to the cat. The cat’s ears flattened and he hissed at Jennifer before slinking away into the living room, tail down. “Whoa,” Jennifer said, staring after the cat as she stood up.

“I’ll bet he’s still mad that we went away. C’mon,” Melissa followed the cat into the living room. She managed to coax him out from under the sofa, but he struggled as Melissa brought him back into the kitchen to let him out the back door.

“Jesus, Lolz, chill,” Jennifer sneered at the cat as he swiped at her with his claws.

“Hey! Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, Jennifer Rose. Ow!,” Melissa cried out as the claws raked her jawline. She opened the door and the cat leapt desperately out of Melissa’s arms and ran down the back steps. “Huh,” she rubbed her bloodied face as she looked at Lolcat run under the hedge.

On the way to school, Jennifer brought out her phone. ‘hey chica,’ she texted, ‘look whos bck in town.’ She rolled her eyes when Melissa asked who she was texting. “It’s my hot Spanish boyfriend, mom.”

“You don’t have a Spanish boyfriend,” Lauren jeered from the back seat, “you’re too ugly.”

“Lauren May, you apologize to your sister right now,” Melissa snapped, giving her younger daughter a glare via the rear-view mirror. Lauren stuck out her lower lip and glared out the window pointedly.

“It’s just Angelina, mom,” Jennifer mumbled, before coughing took hold of her again.

“You really don’t sound so good, you know that?,” Melissa murmured.

“Really? Ya think?” Jennifer blew her nose loudly. “Omigod, who knew?” She gathered up her book bag and kissed her mother on the cheek.

Melissa kissed the air as Jennifer kissed her, “Mwah, have a good day, sweetie. Oh hey, Lauren, give Jenn Chris’ football helmet please. Your brother forgot it this morning.”

Jennifer sighed dramatically as she dangled the helmet, decorated with the school’s lightning bolt logo, from two fingers. “They probably wouldn’t even have let him practice without it. Serves him right for getting out at stupid o’clock.” She coughed again.

“Jenn, sweetie, don’t die, okay?” Melissa smiled at her.

“Uggh,” Jennifer groaned. “Maybe. Not that _you_ care.”

Melissa bit her lip as she watched Jennifer turn and walk up the steps into the school. Was she wrong to have made her go in? Too late now, she thought, as she drove around the high school’s dropoff bay on her way to Lauren’s school. She snuck a look at Lauren, who was still looking out the window. “You feeling okay, Lauren?” Lauren nodded but didn’t meet her eyes. Melissa turned her thoughts to the situations she was likely to find waiting for her at work.

\----------

Five weeks later, Melissa picked at the knitted afghan on Jennifer’s bed. No matter how much her eyes stung, she couldn’t summon the tears. The funeral home’s answering machine simply said they were closed. She couldn’t get any wifi to check for other funeral homes in other towns, and she had no idea whether they had the actual book directory around any more. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she told the still form in the bed, “I’m sorry.”

She had only seen the funeral home a few days earlier, at yet another funeral for one of their neighbours. The husband and wife who ran the home were both afflicted with the Spanish Rash, too, but were still running the home with as much dignity as they could muster from their long years in the business.

“I can’t book you in,” the wife had said quietly, “we’ll have to take who we can, while we can.” She paused. “Some people are doing a really nice service at _home_ now,” she had suggested with a wan smile.

Melissa realised now, too late, that she had meant burying their loved ones in their own backyards.

She wasn’t sure she had the strength. Her pathetic attempts at gardening over the years were usually defeated within an hour or so, and that was during spring. Now, there was an early winter snow and the ground was rock-hard. Her son Chris couldn’t help her; he was lying in the next room, soon to join his sister, now with the Lord in Heaven. Her husband was still missing, never having made it home from a business trip to Rochester. His last text spoke of clogged roads, and trying to find a place to stay for the night. Poor Lauren was just too little, although she’d stepped up quite a bit, to being able to open cans for their dinner. She’d stopped bugging Melissa to let her eat the hoard of Hallowe’en candy that now would not get passed out to the neighbourhood’s children. Maybe she’d already demolished it, but Melissa couldn’t bring herself to care about that.

She looked at her hands, red and roughened from the harsh cleansers she’d been using to try to keep the germs from spreading any further. They itched. She sighed; she couldn’t deny it any longer, she’d seen the rash spreading on parts of her body that weren’t exposed to cleansers. It wasn’t an allergic reaction. She’d be joining Jenn in Heaven soon enough.

But what could she do? Chris and Lauren were still here, she had to keep going. “Look after her, Jesus,” she whispered, “I’ll find a way, with Your help.” She got up and shuffled to her bedroom to change her clothes for digging.

\------

It took her three days, but she’d finally finished digging the hole. She didn’t know where she’d found the strength, as illness started to consolidate its grip on her own body. Melissa had to stop to retch often, and not just from the illness. There was a pong of decay all through the neighbourhood now, not just in her own house, and she couldn’t escape the stench. Chris had died the day after Jennifer had, but Melissa could only gather the strength to make one hole; brother and sister could rest together.

It was uncannily quiet most of the time outside; no loud music or televisions, no cars or trucks going back and forth, not even dogs barking. Occasionally there were howls or the sound of glass breaking, or far-off booms like out-of-season thunder.

She and Lauren had dragged Chris and Jennifer’s bodies down the stairs, wrapped in their bloodied sheets, across the layer of wet unraked leaves on the lawn to the hole. They sang hymns and said their good-byes. As the sleet began falling, they managed to get some of the dirt scraped back into the hole before Melissa felt herself on the point of collapse and had to go back inside.

She’d taken to wearing Chris’ football helmet, Jennifer’s favourite sweater, and her husband’s flannel pajama pants layered under her increasingly baggy pants. Her wedding and engagement rings had been taken off while she still could; she now wore them around her neck, strung onto the chain of the gold cross she always wore. She fingered the cross and rings as she sagged onto the sofa in exhaustion. Lauren flopped onto the sofa next to her, cuddling close; Melissa couldn’t bring herself to admonish her for putting her feet on the sofa.

Melissa held her last child and her resolve to stay strong broke. The sores that were springing up on her face stung mightily as the tears flowed across them, and her sobs turned to coughing. She took the football helmet off to wipe her sleeve across her face, thinking, _I don’t know how long I’ll be here for you._ Admitting this to herself caused her to dissolve into fresh sobs.

“It’s okay, Mommy, it’s okay, hush now,” Lauren’s small voice came from the vicinity of her ribcage. Melissa heard the echoes of her own words of comfort, and those of her own mother. _Hush now._

 _Mama, what am I going to do?,_ she asked the memory of her mother. Her mother had no answer, but Melissa thought of her brother and his wife. With a pang of guilt, she realised she hadn’t spoken to them since before they went off to Spain. They weren’t far, they were probably her best bet for looking after Lauren. The phone lines and internet were still down, but she could just go. First she’d rest, though, just a moment, to catch her breath.

“Lauren, sweetie,” she murmured, “I think we’re gonna go see how Uncle Jason and Aunt Emily are doing, would you like that?” She could feel Lauren’s head nodding her assent. “Let’s pack up, and we’ll go tomorrow, okay?”

“Who will take care of Lolz?,” Lauren asked.

The cat? Melissa was startled; she thought the cat had long since run away. “Lauren, I think Lolcat will be okay wherever he’s gone off to.”

“No, Mommy,” Lauren brought her head out from under Melissa’s arm, “he’s hiding under the house, but I’ve been feeding him. We can’t just leave him.” She stuck her lower lip out.

“No, you’re right, I just thought he’d run away. Can you get him, if I get the cat carrier out?” Lauren nodded solemnly. “Okay, sweetie, we’ll do that. Let me just rest a moment, and I’ll start getting some stuff together.” She put the football helmet back on, but made no move to rise immediately. “You hungry, Lauren?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

The next day dawned chill and grey, with sleet hitting the bedroom windows. Melissa opened her eyes blearily and unwrapped her husband’s pajama top from around her face. She could hear Lauren moving about, calling out to the cat at the back door and shaking the box of cat food. She murmured a prayer as she steeled herself for another day. A moment later she heard Lauren emit a cry of disgust, and with that impetus she willed herself out from the warm bed.

Lauren showed her the mangled corpse on the back step, and she nodded. “It’s just a rat or something, Lauren, it just means Lolz wants to teach us to hunt better.” She’d read that once on the internet, a lifetime ago. “Just leave it alone, I’ll deal with it.” She usually got Chris to bury Lolz’ presents under the bushes. She sighed as the reality of her situation penetrated her sleep-addled brain. “Go get some breakfast, I wanna go right after you’re done.” She put on her helmet, winter boots and coat, and stuck out her tongue in disgust as she closed the door. She couldn’t face more digging; she decided she was just going to fling it away under the bushes.

Melissa made herself look at the grisly remains, but paused as she reached down. She counted the legs a second time, then a third. Eight legs. It wasn’t actually a rat, it was a chipmunk, she could see that now, but there were definitely too many legs splayed around, and they were all too long. She quickly grabbed the corpse by its tail and flung it away, before leaning over the railing to retch.

She turned on the tap to wash her hands, but only a small burst of water came out, followed only by a distant groaning in the empty pipes. “Just great,” she muttered. From the kitchen window, she could see a small river running down the street; the pipes must have broken somewhere. With a sinking heart she realised that there was no one to call to fix it. It was just as well they were leaving, she thought.

She looked around her bedroom for any last items she’d want to reconsider packing, when the realisation hit her that even if they found a cure soon, she wouldn’t be coming back. None of them would be. There were the rest of her clothes, the fancy dresses, the high-heeled shoes. There was the phone, long since drained of battery despite being plugged into its charger. There was the plaster cast of Chris’ hands, that he’d made in Cub Scouts. There was the Bible on their nightstand, a gift from her grandmother.

She closed the door behind her and closed her eyes as she stepped down the hall, the Bible clutched to her chest. Framed photos of the children and the family lined the corridor. Her steps quickened as she passed her wedding portrait; she couldn’t meet the eyes of the happy couple. “Lauren, we have to go! We have to go NOW,” she yelled in despair.

Somehow she found herself driving down the highway, with their bags and Lauren and the miraculously caged Lolcat howling in the back. A couple of grocery bags of food remaining from their pantry were stuffed in the front passenger seat and footwell. Melissa concentrated as she drove through her town, now almost unrecognisable. Uncollected trash bags had been torn open, sodden garbage strewn over streets and sidewalks, blocking the gutters. As she dodged piled up cars, she wondered if she had enough gas to get to her brother’s place after all. Her usual gas station was gone; just a burnt shell remained, and she had to drive carefully around pieces of the gas pumps strewn over the road.

A chance encounter with some people in a truck, the only living souls she saw, sent Melissa toward the George Washington Shopping Centre. A middle-aged Indian man introduced himself politely and beckoned Melissa and Lauren, clutching the carrier and terrified cat, to come inside. She stared down with wonder at the mug of hot tea thrust into her hands.

Someone was asking her if her brother lived close by. They had to repeat the question to penetrate her daze, saying it slowly and deliberately, “Where, does your brother, live?”

Even as she gave the answer, she realised how ludicrous it sounded. “He lives in Hope,” she put her tea down as tears started anew. “They live in Hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope, New Jersey, is a real place. You can look it up. There's also Harmony and Tranquility nearby. I'm sure their residents don't get any different treatment than anywhere else in the apocalypse, though.


	6. Later That Same Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody eats curry in this chapter. Perhaps that is a pity.

\----

LaTisha grimaced as she poured a stream of pink liquid onto her cereal and stirred it around. Seeing the doubtful expression on the face of the new woman slumped opposite her at the table, she explained, “Melted ice cream. It’s pretty good.” As the woman recoiled, she shrugged. “It’s strawberry. You wanna try some?”

“Hell no.”

LaTisha shrugged again before taking a large mouthful, “Stays down, most of the time. Listen, I’m LaTisha, I met you last night, remember? What’s your name again, honey?”

“Rachel.” Rachel distractedly ran a hand through her curly hair, scattering droplets of melting rain. She squinted at LaTisha’s bowl. “I…I’ve never seen anybody put, ahh, ice cream on their cereal before?”

“Well, the milk’s all gone, and we’re sorta keeping the powdered stuff for later.”

“Later?”

LaTisha looked out the glass door of the Curry Palace, into the grey sleet. “Well, you know…we don’t really know how long it’s gonna be? Before we can get fresh stuff again.” Rachel could see the rash along the other woman’s jawline, and she shrank into herself. Turning back to Rachel, LaTisha continued, “And, we don’t know how long we’re gonna have the freezer either. So, ice cream for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, right? I think there’s some pizza pockets out, too, if you want that.”

Rachel shook her head. “No! I mean, thanks, I…I can’t eat right now.” After a moment, she set her jaw, “And I do not want to scream.”

“I din’ mean it like that,” LaTisha looked pained. “I hear ya, though.” She worked through another bite. “Mm-mm, loud and clear. So, where you from, Rachel?”

“Um, Scotch Plains,” Rachel looked into her lap.

A long moment passed as LaTisha watched Rachel wince and twitch to whatever was going through her mind. Most of the refugees were traumatised when they first arrived, and even if Rachel had no visible symptoms of the epidemic in this dim light, LaTisha reasoned that she was likely scarred in other ways.

LaTisha asked softly, “You here by yourself, huh?” She winced at the ferocity in Rachel’s sudden glare. “Whoa! Okay! It’s okay. Just wondering, is all, sorry.” Rachel looked back into her lap. LaTisha continued, “I’m from Paterson, me and Tyrell, that is. Paterson…,” she let her spoon drop into her bowl, “yeah, Paterson is just, like, gone. It looks like a bomb went off or som’n. Anyway. It got worse after the power went down. You could go out in the day, but you couldn’t really go anywhere, you know? Everybody was tryin’ to leave, but nothin’ was open anymore. An’ like, there was some kinda monsters ‘n’ shit. The National Guard ‘n’ shit were going around in jeeps like in a movie, gettin’ people to go to the Meadowlands, to like, Giants Stadium, but we thought we’d try to get to Tyrell’s auntie’s place in King of Prussia.” She waved her hands around the dim restaurant, “We-all ran out of gas right here, an’ here we are.”

“Monsters,” Rachel whispered, red-rimmed eyes flickering up at LaTisha.

“Mm-hm,” she nodded. “Things that look kinda like dogs and deer and stuff running around all night fighting and eating each other. And like, zombies chasin’ people down and... aw, sorry, I shouldn’t say that at the table.” She noticed Rachel staring at her, but her eyes weren’t quite focussed on LaTisha.

Rachel weakly waved a hand, “No, it’s okay.” She poked a finger on the table toward LaTisha. “Sorry, what do you mean by ‘zombies chasing people down’? What exactly do you mean?”

LaTisha drew a deep breath. “Ah, well.” Her hands waved in small circles in front of her. “Like, they were sorta like people and had clothes on, and sorta like animals with all teeth, and they were all …falling apart, with, like, hanging…,” she held up her arm and pantomimed strips hanging off her upper arm with her fingers. “I saw one come out of a house running after a little kid, and-“ She stopped herself, not wanting to remember a grisly scene, let alone say it out loud. “Shit.” She scrubbed her face with her hands, then gritted her teeth and flicked her hands in the air in front of her, to avoid scratching at the rash.

Rachel’s eyes were focussed on LaTisha now. She nodded, “I think I saw some of those last night, when I was driving. I thought they were zombies, too, like in a movie.” Her gaze fell onto her lap again. “I don’t know what’s happening. But Shel…” She gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, but tears rolled down her face anyway. “My-my partner, they-their hand…,” her mouth worked but no more sound could come out.

“I’m sorry,” LaTisha said softly. “Yeah.” She stood up slowly, leaning on the table for support, “Wooo, dizzy.” Gathering the bowl in her hands, she looked down at Rachel. “Stupid disease. I’m not gonna find out how this movie ends, even. I’m sorry your man died, honey,” and she started walking to the back of the restaurant. “We’ll all be with Jesus soon, mm-hm.”

Rachel frowned reflexively, “I’m Jewish, we don’t-,” but then paused. “Shel wasn’t dead,” she said. LaTisha stopped and looked back at Rachel, pale and huddled in the too-large coat. “Shel didn’t die,” she said more loudly. The others in the restaurant looked up at her. Her eyes were unfocussed again, looking past LaTisha. Her mouth formed a small o before she looked around frantically. “Dammit, where’s my phone? I gotta try calling.”

“’s no reception,” somebody muttered.

“Your phone still has a charge? Huh,” came another voice.

Rachel sighed heavily, “Right. Noooo, I forgot.” She brought her hands heavily down onto the table top. “But,” she looked up imploringly, “last night, when I left, my-my partner was really sick, and kinda delirious, talking about hearing voices, and whether it was time to-,” she grimaced and swallowed, “and then, and then, their feet were sort of _growing._ ” Everyone’s eyes were riveted on her. “But then they, they _chased_ me, and _they weren’t dead,_ oh my god, oh my god,” she fluttered her hands but the words kept coming out in a rush. “Shel like, grabbed my car, but it could’n’a been Shel, it was all long and _really strong,_ how could that be Shel? I mean, Shel was almost dead, but then they grabbed my _car_ and that’s how their hand got stuck andand-” She was breathing heavily, now, looking down at the tabletop in front of her.

LaTisha had come back to the table and put down the bowl, taking one of Rachel’s flailing hands in her own. She murmured comforting nonsense phrases at Rachel, who pulled her hand away, eyes wild. “What if _you_ turn into a zombie, too?” LaTisha stared at Rachel, stricken. Everyone in the restaurant started talking at once.

“SHUT UP! Shut up!,” the shouting came from Angelina in the fluoro orange beanie, standing in the doorway to the pharmacy. “I saw them! They died! They all – just – DIED!” She was openly weeping now. “I hate this, I hate this!” She fled back into the pharmacy.

Into the silence that followed, LaTisha clicked her tongue. “You ‘n’ me both, honey, you ‘n’ me both.”

\---

Govind went out to the chainlink in the afternoon, escorting in a woman in a football helmet and a small girl clutching a cat cage. Nisha pressed a cup of hot tea into the woman’s hands and they listened to her story, including her encounter with Jeff and Deirdre.

The little girl wandered around the restaurant, playing with stirring around the melted ice cream. “Lauren?,” came a sound behind her, “Lauren-Adoren, is that you?”

“Angelina!” Lauren shouted, and ran up to throw her arms around her sister’s best friend.

The older girl gathered her up in a bear hug, “oh my GOD, I am so glad to see you!” She beamed at Melissa, who was staring with shock at Angelina. With the squealing Lauren still wrapped around her, she hurried over to hug Melissa as well. The sight of Melissa’s rashed face, gaunt and haunted in the recesses of the football helmet, stopped her short. Angelina looked around briefly before flatly stating, “Jenn and Chris aren’t here.” Melissa’s eyes dropped.

Lauren wriggled to be put down. She said, “We put them under the tree with the swing. Jesus can push them, if they want, so high they get to heaven. We’ll take Daddy there when he gets back.” Angelina’s arms fell limp to her sides. Lauren went back to stirring the ice cream. The only sound was the sleet on the roof and Melissa’s soft sobbing. Lauren suddenly looked up at Angelina brightly, “we brought Lolz with us, wanna see him?”

She took Angelina’s hand and brought her over to the cat carrier. The cat was cowering in a corner of the box, huge eyes darting left and right. He let out a warning meow as Angelina peered into through the door, cooing to try to calm him down. She stopped Lauren from opening the carrier, “no, leave him be. He’s kind of scared, we don’t want him to run away.”

Angelina paused, looking at Lauren’s hands. They were cold and red, and her small fingernails were caked with dirt, but there was no rash. Her face was grimy under her polarfleece beanie, but she looked otherwise healthy. “Lauren,” she began, but the girl’s solemn eyes were so like her dead sister’s that Angelina felt grief stab though her. “Why don’t I show you around,” she said instead, standing up.

They walked through the pharmacy, the convenience store, and the laundromat, before ending up in the supermarket. Lauren was clearly awed walking through the darkened stores, but tore away from Angelina’s hand when she saw the Hallowe’en display in the supermarket. “Look!,” she squealed, “there’s LOTS of candy for Trick or Treat!” She mock-shambled around the display, arms held stiffly in front of her. “Jenn and me are gonna be ZOMBIES for Hallowe’en. BRAAAAAIIINSs,” she let her tongue hang out. A moment later she had morphed back into a grimy girl in a dark supermarket. “Not Jenn, though. When’s Hallowe’en again?,” she asked. Angelina shook her head at her morosely, unsure how to reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have belaboured the joke about the Zombie Apocalypse fad a bit much by now? Maybe, maybe not. In other news, we have refugees being herded into Giants Stadium. I crack myself up sometimes.


	7. Nisha's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory on the woman who makes those lovely curries.

\------------

_“Mother, I have bought a restaurant,” Govind leaned across the table, waving the bread in his hand. “It has been making a good turnover, but I got it at a very good price.”_

_Nisha nodded. “Good, good, the Subway on Newark Avenue does a good business. What convinced them to sell?”_

_“Oh, it’s not a Subway,” Govind scooped a mouthful of dal with the bread, “This opportunity came along instead, and I couldn’t let it go. It’s not a franchise.”_

_“What’s wrong with it?,” Nisha scowled._

_“Nothing! There’s nothing wrong with it!” Govind frowned as he scraped the last gravy from his bowl. “But you know Priti and I have been wanting to get out of the city, and let Sanjay and the new baby grow up somewhere clean, out in the country.”_

_“It’s not in Jersey City? Where is it, Newark? My cousin is there, it’s not so bad by the college,” Nisha deposited another scoop of dal in Govind’s bowl._

_“It’s a little further out than that. It’s a growing market, just crying out for good Indian food, like... you make,” Govind brought the bowl up to his face and inhaled the fragrant dal appreciatively. Nisha grunted but smiled inwardly. “I’ve already given my notice,” he added nonchalantly._

_“What!,” Nisha dropped the spoon abruptly into the serving dish, “Why? You’re an engineer, that’s why you wanted a franchise! What do you know about restaurants?”_

_Govind shrugged expressively. “The people that sold me the place are willing to stay on for a while until they sell their house and find a place to retire, it’s fine. They say the people around there won’t know if they just add curry powder to the chicken chow mein anyway.” He fixed his gaze into his bowl and exulted silently, feeling the force of his mother’s horrified stare boring into the back of his head._

\------

_Nisha switched off her mobile phone and put it away in her purse for the evening. She couldn’t talk anymore, anyway, else her voice would break into brittle autumn leaves and blow away. How could Priti go so quickly? Just a week previously she was helping Nisha chop vegetables at her usual spot in the restaurant’s kitchen, complaining of a headache and a little rash. Nisha had scolded her then and sent her home, to make sure she didn’t spread whatever she had to the customers. And now she was dead; the rash had enveloped her body and burnt her from the inside out._

_The doctor had been treating it as a severe allergic reaction, not the “Spanish Rash” epidemic causing countries in Europe to close their borders. The doctor told Govind that that illness was confined to Europe, Priti couldn’t possibly have contracted it here in New Jersey. ‘Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,’ he’d said. They pumped Priti full of steroids to counteract the reaction, but her heart and kidneys failed, even as the rash enveloped her._

_Nisha watched Govind shuffling around the front of the restaurant listlessly. He was taking Priti’s loss hard, of course, but also the refusal of their relatives to come out for her funeral rites, afraid they too would catch the Spanish Rash. Jersey City had plenty of cases, Nisha had argued that they would be safer out here, but they were not coming. Govind decided not to close the restaurant, even though business was way down; nearly twenty years’ habit was not easily broken. His sons Sanjay and Rajiv stayed home. Nisha chopped the onions herself, blaming them for the tears which she allowed to course down her face._

\------

_“I blew out the tires on their car,” Sanjay boasted, “They were already out of the parking lot, and I got them!” A wide grin broke out on his handsome face as he high-fived his brother Rajiv. “They were so mad! But they ran away when I pointed the gun at them. And,” he pantomimed opening the back of the vehicle and taking out parcels, “not only was the stuff from the pharmacy there, they had bags of booze, and whole cases of ammo! Oh, and Pepsi, so much Pepsi! Empty bottles, full bottles, Pepsi bottles everywhere!”_

_“Drugs and Pepsi? Everything you need to survive the Zombie Apocalypse!” Rajiv chimed in, and the boys exchanged high-fives again._

_Govind frowned, “We don’t shoot_ people _, Sanjay. Remember that.” He continued sweeping the broken glass from the shop window into a pile. “We need to find a way to protect these shops better.” He looked over his shoulder to the Italian restaurant on the other end of the strip mall. “Leon’s already gone, I haven’t seen the Lius in the laundromat, the garden shop’s closed anyway.” He shrugged, “I’ll stay open, what else can I do?”_

_The manager of the pharmacy shook her head. “It’s no use,” she cried, “I can’t do it anymore. I tried, but Marta’s already dead and I’m just too sick to put up with this shit.” She threw her hands down to her sides in frustration. “I don’t even have anything left that can help this stupid Spanish Rash anyway. If I did, I’d’a taken it already.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Nah, this is it. All’a yas can look after it, I’m outta here. I’m going home.”_

_Nisha frowned, “But what about my-“_

_The pharmacist held up her hand placatingly. “Mrs. Bhavan, I get that. I’ll just give you whatever I have left. No, seriously, no charge. That should last you until they find a cure and the CVS head office sends someone to open up this shop again.” She stepped into the shop, carefully closing the door to avoid the broken glass._

_Nisha squinted doubtfully at the leaden sky and the abandoned cars in the parking lot. “You boys could pull some of those cars around the front of the pharmacy, make like a wall.” Sanjay and Rajiv were staring at her, while Govind was shaking his head. “That’s not a suggestion. Do it,” she waved her hands. “I used to see people hauling stolen cars around, they would just tie some straps to it and pull like they were donkeys.” She pantomimed pulling something in her two fists over her shoulder and walking forward slowly with it. “You’re good strong boys, go on.”_

_“I am not a donkey, Dadi!,” Sanjay was shocked, “I can’t just-“_

_“You are too a donkey, you’re an ass!,” Rajiv laughed. He side-stepped nimbly to avoid Sanjay’s long-armed swipe. “Too sloooow,” he taunted._

_“And you’re too weak,” Sanjay riposted. Nisha smiled inwardly at their antics._

\---

“Rajiv,” Nisha said firmly, “sit.” The young man opened his mouth to protest, but Nisha held up one finger. “Not one word.” She ladled out a bowl of green palak curry and placed it in front of him.

“Yes, Dadi,” he said as he looked morosely at the bowl. “But I already ate.”

“What, those pizza things? That’s not food, doesn’t count. This, this will let you see in the dark,” Nisha turned her back on her grandson and turned her attention back to Rachel at the small cookstove. “No, we can’t make ghee from margarine, don’t be silly,” she told Rachel. “It doesn’t keep as long as oil does, but it will sit on a shelf. Even with the salt, tastes better. Keep stirring.” She wiped her hands on the apron she wore over her shalwar kameez. The bright loose-fitting garments concealed a few layers of warm clothes beneath them.

Rachel tucked her curling hair behind her ear, then shoved her free hand into her armpit to warm it up. Nisha considered the woman nervous and stuck-up, but at least she was finally making herself somewhat useful. All attempts to get her to take a turn doing the nursing duty in the Trattoria Alfonso had failed, even though she was an obvious choice. She had taken a few turns on digging duty, but hadn’t made much headway in the muck, before succumbing to a cold and becoming convinced that she too, had the dreaded illness.

She got into a long argument with the football-helmet lady ( _Melissa,_ Nisha told herself, _her name is Melissa_ ) about the nature of the afterlife from a Jewish versus Christian perspective, reducing the other woman to tears. Shortly after that Melissa moved into the Trattoria, along with Jeff. Most of the people in the compound were angry at Rachel after that.

Govind had pointed out that their numbers were dwindling; they couldn’t afford to form factions. They had to learn to get along. Rachel had been seconded into the kitchen under Nisha’s supervision.

“You want some palak too, Rachel?,” Nisha asked. She lowered a rack of clean glass jars into a pot of boiling water, sending steam rolling along the kitchen’s ceiling.

“Yes please,” Rachel nodded. “I want to see in the dark too.” She didn’t raise her eyes from the pot she was stirring.

The older woman snorted, “Eh, yeah. But what to see, I don’t want to know.”

“You’re not wrong.” Rachel called out to Rajiv, “hey, Rajiv, nice shot on that thing you got last night.” Rajiv was caught with his mouth full and could only nod to acknowledge the appreciation.

“Person,” Nisha corrected.

Rachel shook her head, “no, that had to be an animal. I can’t get my head around something like that being a person.”

“But it happened to you,” Nisha said gently. Rachel winced but did not reply. “I feel bad for them, they cannot be reborn.”

“Reborn,” Rachel glanced up at Nisha, “you mean reincarnated?”

“Yes of course, what else? I heard you arguing, yes heaven, no heaven,” Nisha gestured with her cupped hands to the left, then to the right. “I hope Melissa is going to her angels maybe, but we Hindus believe we are reborn. But if the person doesn’t die, how can they be reborn?” Her breath came out in steamy puffs in the cold air as she spoke.

“You usually cremate, too, don’t you? Sorry, can you come see if this is right?,” she gestured for Nisha to look at the butter in the saucepan.

“Not even close. Keep stirring,” Nisha had barely glanced in the cookpot. “All the water has to come out.” She shuffled back to check on her boiling jars. “Cremation is good, burial is okay too.” She sighed, “but no body is not good. Sanjay,” she stopped and shook her head ruefully, “maybe he’s one of them now. I don’t know. He didn’t even look sick.”

Rachel bit her lip. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she ventured, “what happened to him?”

Nisha carefully put the lid back on the boiling pot. “One day, fine. Next day, said he could hear them screaming.”

“'Them' who?”

“We don’t know, just screaming. He said they were lost and frightened.” Nisha pulled a knife sharpener from the rack of utensils on one wall and began sharpening a cleaver. “And then he ran away. Must have climbed a fence or something, but ran into the woods,” she jerked her head toward the ribbon of trees separating the back of the strip mall from the nearest houses.

“Lost and frightened,” Rachel repeated the words. “Yeah. That is supposed to be one of the symptoms of the Spanish Rash, hearing voices. But nobody said anything about them turning into…those. That’s what happened to my Shel, too.” She sniffed. "I'm so used to having these discussions with Shel, one would take one side, one would take the other, then we'd switch and argue the other side. And now..." She eased the tension in her neck, twisting her head around, "people." After a moment she added, “I’m sorry, Nisha.”

Nisha carefully placed the sharpened cleaver on the cutting board. The pots bubbled quietly while each woman was lost in her own thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope nobody minds that I did not write the dialogue of the actual debate between Rachel and Melissa. Debate, or argument, depending on POV. It may have made a fascinating three-way with Hinduism, but not in my hands. Neither the story's format nor my scholarship is up to the task.


	8. Life in Transition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The community is forming new routines as they wait for all this to blow over. It will, won't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but at least no one dies in it. That probably counts as a spoiler, for a story taking place in the middle of an apocalypse.

Angelina sullenly turned the football helmet in her hands, over and over. She stuck her fingers in the ear holes and spun it, watching the lightning bolt on the side blur into a hurricane spiral. She remembered a time when she had a crush on its owner, her best friend’s older brother, Chris. Now Chris was dead, her best friend Jennifer was dead, and their mother lay on the makeshift mattress next to where she sat, comatose and ravaged by the rash that had spread over and through her body. Her own father Jeff lay on the mat Angelina was sitting on, comatose in the final stages of the disease.

When would she go back to school? She had started her junior year only a few months ago, groaning with her friends about their teachers and assignments. The plastic smell on the new notebooks hadn’t even had time to fade before people started getting sick, right around the time Jenn and Chris had come back from Spain. Angelina frowned and gave the football helmet another spin. She pictured her homeroom; she knew some of her classmates were dead even before her sick parents had pulled her and her brother Xavier out of school, intending to head South. They hadn't gotten far, they'd only looted a few shops for supplies before they encountered Govind, and her mother insisted they stay. Where else could she go now? It was scary enough going outside the chainlink on burying or water-hauling duty.  
  
How many more had died since she’d come here? Jenn's mom had told her about the ruins of her town, and how there was no one left to bury the dead. How would she know when it was safe to go back? Would she be the only one left? The football helmet gaped at her, face guard dangling awkwardly, suddenly reminding her of a skull with a dislocated jawbone.

She put the helmet down quickly and crossed herself. Blinking, she gave the washcloth sitting in a bowl of water between the two stricken people a small squeeze. She let a corner of the cloth into the corner of her father’s mouth, supporting his head gently. He swallowed some of the water involuntarily. “Do you see what I’m doing, Lauren Adoren?,” she said softly to the small girl next to her.

Jennifer’s surviving little sister Lauren looked up from her coloring book. Like Angelina, Lauren was also miraculously free of the disease. “I’m making a rainbow,” she told Angelina, before bending her head to the book again. “God makes rainbows, and Mommy likes them a lot, so I’m making her one.” Lauren had found the markers and coloring books in the stationery aisle of the Shop-Rite and brought them with her into the former Italian restaurant, along with a bag of Fun-size Snickers.

“I’m giving him water, a little at a time,” Angelina explained, “so he doesn’t get too ...too…”, she couldn’t remember the word. She shuffled around to give Melissa some water from the cup sitting next to her. “And some for your mom, too.” The water kept dribbling out the side of Melissa’s slack mouth. Her tongue wasn’t moving to accept the water. Angelina felt for her pulse; it took some pressure, but she did find a weak pulse in her neck. Another attempt was more successful and Melissa swallowed a little water.

Angelina slumped onto the mat next to her father again, taking his hand in hers. She stroked his hand on the small patches where there was no rash. “I love you, Daddy,” she murmured, “and I know even though you say Heaven has no place for tough old rockers like you, I know you’ll be happy there, with Mama and Xavier.” Her tears fell freely onto his hand. “I don’t want you to leave me alone, but I don’t want you to suffer neither,” she whispered. “What am I going to do?”

He didn’t answer her. The only sound in the room was the laboured breathing of the other patients and the scratching of Lauren’s markers as she colored her page.

“You want one of my Snickers?,” Lauren asked after a moment. She sat up, reached into the bag and took out a candy bar, the wrapper making a loud ripping noise in the quiet room. The smell of chocolate almost made Angelina retch.

“No, thanks,” Angelina said softly.

“Okay,” Lauren ate her chocolate contentedly as she skooshed into the curve of her mother’s body as she lay on her side. “They’re Mommy’s favorite.”

Deidre pulled aside the blanket covering the portal to the Shop-Rite, admitting a cold draft which curled around Angelina’s ankles. “Hon, I can take over for a while,” she said, placing a bucket of hot washwater between Jeff and Melissa, “we’ve got a washtub heated up. Go get clean, and then we’ll do some clothes.”

Angelina glanced down at her father, but nodded. They built a fire and heated enough water for bathing and laundry only once a week, so she was loath to miss the opportunity. She leaned over and kissed her father on one of the few intact patches of skin left on his face. “I won’t be long, Daddy. I love you,” she murmured.

“No thank you,” she heard Lauren politely tell Deidre. “I’ll stay here.”

They had rigged up some curtained-off enclosures in the back loading dock area, one for men and one for women. The area was cleared enough to build a strong fire on the concrete, with the roller door partially open for ventilation. Several large stockpots from the restaurants were heating on the fire, kept topped up with water laboriously and dangerously hauled up the slope to the shopping center, from the Musconetcong River a quarter mile away. Each enclosure had a large galvanized steel tub from the garden centre, that was just big enough for an adult to sit in. Even with the bonfire helping to heat the space, it was teeth-chatteringly cold in the loading dock, so most of the residents took their baths quickly.

As Angelina settled the lower half of her body into the hot water, she kept the week’s thermal shirt on. She gave herself a moment to give in to the sheer bliss of the bath, the breath of her sigh curling in the cold air above the tub. She soaped up quickly, including soaping the shirt to wash it. She jumped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around her hips, as she bent over the tub to rub a dab of shampoo through her long hair. Each person had only a drink cup from the 7-Eleven for their rinse water, so they had all learned early to use much less soap and water than they had in the days before the epidemic. The rinse water was emptied into the tub; Angelina was the third woman to take a bath in the tub today, and there was several more waiting behind her. Some nights Angelina dreamed about the long showers she used to take, but today she was grateful for a 16-ounce Slurpee cup of rapidly cooling water with only a few bits of bark in it.

She squeezed the water out of her hair and shirt, and called the next person in. She dressed in the clean panties and undershirt she’d brought in with her, as the next woman came in tentatively. It was a newly-arrived person, looking somewhat askance at the somewhat cloudy water in the tub. Angelina gave a brief smile as she turned around for the lady’s privacy, as she put her own pants and overshirts back on. It took Angelina quite a while to comb and detangle her long hair. Not for the first time, she thought about cutting it to make it easier on herself. Her fashionably ombred hair was growing out, the bleached blonde ends gone frizzy without the conditioners she used to use. Her sweaters and hoodies and other outer layers were cleaned far less often, so as she exited the bath enclosure with a towel around her hair, Angelina didn’t smell much different on the outside. Underneath, however, she felt sparkling.


	9. Rats and Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some horror, some laughter, and the cats are honing their skills in the background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In retrospect, it was probably not a great idea to outfit all the refugees housed in Giants Stadium in Giants merchandise.  
> \-----------------

_Meadowlands Stadium_

The guard struggled with the trolley as he pushed it across the broad parking lot. The sleet and wind cut right through his lined security uniform jacket, but it felt quite refreshing on his fevered face. Something about the atmosphere in the stadium felt stuffy and closed-in, even more than the futility in housing the refugees affected by the Spanish Rash epidemic. The cold bare concrete surfaces in the stadium echoed eerily, making it sound to the guard like there were refugees’ voices everywhere. It was depressing to listen to them all complaining all the time, about how cold it was and how lonely it was. Everywhere he went, they were constantly trying to get him to come sit with them, but when he turned around, he could never see who was calling to him. It was creepy, and he was glad to get out into the open air on disposal duty, even though he was sick and weakened himself. The stadium management, such as it still was, had no choice any longer and were forced to dump loads outside the perimeter, directly into the marshy areas beyond the parking lots. It was considered onerous and somewhat shameful, but the guard’s sensitivities had become dulled in the weeks he’d been there.

For him the difficulty in this duty came more in just keeping the trolley from tipping over. It had already done so once on this trip, requiring the guard to stop and reload its spilled contents. It was originally meant to carry balls and equipment around, and was not built for its current load, or to be wheeled across the rough concrete of the parking lot. He finally reached the gate in the chainlink, sagging against it as he took off his glove and felt among the keys jingling on his belt for the key to the padlock.

He opened the gate and started hauling out the disposal bags, grimacing at the rats scattering from the older bags as he threw the new bags onto the existing pile one by one. _Damn. Some of those rats ain’t right,_ he thought. As if on cue, one of the rats leapt at him, baring its teeth and emitting a piercing scream. The guard emitted his own piercing scream before grabbing the shovel from its spot on the trolley. He managed to connect shovel with rat mid-air, but the rat immediately sprang up and rushed him again. With a clang, the guard caved the rat’s skull with the shovel, and it lay still. He picked up the corpse with his shovel and threw it into the marsh.

Winded, he sat down on the cold tarmac and removed his hat, letting the cold sleet hit his bare shaven head and slide down the back of his neck. A coughing fit took hold of his weakened body. He rolled over onto his hands and knees and vomited. He took several minutes to recover, before dragging out the last bag, pushing it weakly off the edge into the marsh. It broke open on impact, exposing a fashionably pristine sneaker on a slender leg still clothed in blue stretch denim. The guard bowed his head and said a sad prayer, before putting his hat back on and making his way back to the stadium. _Ain’ nobody gonna be left t’say a prayer for me,_ he thought.

Back inside the shelter of the stadium once again, the guard parked the trolley, then sat down to rest before making his way back to his duty section. He heard a great clamouring echoing down the undersides of the seating areas, seemingly coming from everywhere at once, but he didn’t have the energy left to make like a proper security guard and keep order. He raised his eyes to the crowd of people wearing blue and red Giants jerseys and hoodies, rushing at him down the loading dock. “Now you just stop right-,” he began weakly, but stopped as he puzzled over how some of the people seemed so tall, and had so very many teeth.

\------------

_George Washington Shopping Centre_

“What is it, Lolz? What is it, huh?,” Lauren unlocked the back door of the laundromat. The small window was fogged over, allowing only a dim light through in to the back of the shop. She opened the door a crack to see why the cat was howling, but she had learned not to open the door fully. A cold wind blew through the crack in the doorway as the girl peered down. Sure enough, there was her cat, forepaw holding down a wriggling mass of …something.

“Ewwww,” Lauren grimaced. She closed the door abruptly and set down the cat bowl of clean water onto the floor next to the door. Since her mother had died, she was looked after mostly by Angelina and Dierdre. She was much too young to be given any of the heavier work assignments in the community such as water haulage or grave-digging, so she was given responsibility over feeding and watering the centre’s animal population. In addition to her own cat Lolcat, the residents had brought several cats and dogs with them as they fled their homes and found refuge in the shopping centre.

Even the most pampered and docile cats became quite aggressive, hissing at and biting their bewildered owners, no matter what dainty treats the owners obtained from the supermarket shelves for them. All of the cats began hunting in earnest, bringing a steady stream of mangled animal parts back to the strip mall. In contrast to the thriving cats, every dog sickened and died from the same epidemic illness that claimed most of their owners.

Puss-Puss came out from under the bank of dryers, curling around Lauren’s legs before settling down to lap at the water. Everyone said this was Deidre’s cat, but Puss-Puss had always belonged to the shopping centre as a whole. Since the shopping centre had been closed off for the epidemic, Puss-Puss mostly hid in the laundromat, avoiding most of the residents.

Lauren reached down and stroked Puss-Puss, “You like _me,_ don’t you? You’re so pretty.” She squatted next to the cat. “I wish you would come sleep with me, Puss-Puss. Lolcat used to, but won’t anymore. You would like the bed at my house.” She sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. “It’s all pink with fairies all over it. I like to imagine the fairies have parties with me. Do you like fairies?” Puss-Puss’ only answer was to curl over and groom her hind leg. “I have my pillow, I brought it with me. Mommy told me my uncle and auntie would let me use the bed they have at their house.” The concrete floor in the laundromat was dismally cold; Lauren stood up. “I guess they’re going to come here and get me, since Mommy’s dead now. You could come with me, Puss-Puss, if you want.” Lauren bent down to pet the cat again, but Puss-Puss suddenly looked up, flattened her ears, hissed at something behind Lauren, and disappeared under the dryers in a puff of fur. “Aw, come back, Puss-Puss!”

“Hi,” came a small voice behind Lauren. She turned around to see a boy silhouetted in the doorway. He was bundled in layers of hoodies and a parka, until only his nose and a glitter of eyes were visible.

The boy turned out to be only a year older than Lauren and newly arrived at the shopping centre; she proceeded to show him around. He was suitably awed by the darkened Shop-Rite and impressed by the dusty Hallowe’en display, even though it was long since denuded of candy. She showed him every aisle, gesturing with her arms, pretending she was a hostess on a game show. Within a few minutes, the two of them were chasing each other up and down the gloomy aisles, squealing.

Inside the Trattoria Alfonso, the man on nursing duty huffed with indignation, putting a bookmark in his book as he muttered about ‘those damn kids’ as he prepared to get up to admonish them.

LaTisha laid a weak hand on his arm. “Leave ‘em be,” her voice cracked. “’s nice to hear somebody laugh.” The effort was too much, her hand fell limply back onto the mat.


	10. Not A Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A raiding trip to the Home Depot goes awry.

“It’s only just over there, for cryin’ out loud,” Jerzy gestured across the pile of cars in the parking lot. “Have you seriously not gone over there?” He squinted across to the Home Depot a few hundred yards down the highway from the George Washington Shopping Centre. He was a new arrival to the community, another of the increasingly rare individuals who remained free of the illness.

“Have you seriously never encountered a zombie?,” Jesse shot back, breath clouding in the cold. “There’s at least two in there, probably more.” Jerzy didn’t answer and didn’t return Jesse’s glare.

Rajiv twined his fingers through the chainlink and rattled it a few times. “It’s a long way to run with a zombie on your tail. Some of them move so quickly, sheesh.”

Jesse nodded, “I only just barely beat one on my bike the other day, and it wasn’t that far away from here. I hope it didn’t follow me.” Jesse picked up the bicycle’s handlebars and gently bounced the front wheel of the bike a few times.

“Haylee said she saw some of them fighting down by the river they other day,” Rajiv muttered to the chainlink as he rattled it, “and some of them still had on gang clothes, and some of them were, like, deer or something. They ripped each other apart.” Jerzy looked at his shoes. “Sorry, man,” Rajiv sputtered, “she didn’t say which gang.”

Jesse gasped, “Did they chase her? Where was this?”

“On water patrol,” Rajiv gestured toward the river as he shook his head. “Downstream a little way from the pool. She said these weren’t moving all that fast.”

Jerzy snorted. “They just get cold.” Shrugging, he added, “We had to deal with a couple of zombies getting into the school.”

“We’ve been picking off the ones that try to get in, but I don’t really have a lot of ammo left,” Rajiv said. He squinted at the imposing newcomer. “You know how to use a knife? Up close?”

Jerzy grinned and swiftly pulled out a switchblade, the blade suddenly gleaming in the thin light, “Duh. I’ll cut you.” Neither Rajiv nor Jesse returned his boast and Jerzy folded the blade, smile gone. “You wanna know if I can cut a zombie. Yeah, I’ve done that. One of ours.” Rajiv gave him a sympathetic look, but Jerzy was scowling down at his knife as he put it away. Jesse shifted from foot to foot, wrapping a scarf more tightly around their face.

Rachel came out from the Curry Palace, carrying a few boxes of food out to the trio. “Yeah, I love me some curry,” Jerzy held out hands to eagerly receive the boxes. “Best thing about this place! Thank you, honey,” he directed an oily leer at Rachel.

She raised an eyebrow but otherwise kept her expression neutral. “I put an egg in yours, Mr Gojdycz, so you can suck it.” Before he could reply, Rachel strode back inside. Jesse and Rajiv snorted in derision.

“Mister! Jeez, lady,” Jerzy directed to the restaurant door, “just tryin’a be friendly.” The trio moved out, Rajiv and Jerzy weaving shopping carts between the cars blockading the entrance to the community, Jesse riding ahead on bicycle.

The Home Depot’s building still looked reasonably fresh from the vantage point of the shopping centre down the road, but more menacing as they approached. The other shops in its shopping centre were dark, the American flags adorning the awnings fading. Jerzy joked, “Hey, we need any pens? Gotta get ready for back to school, heh,” as they passed an office supplies shop.

The few windows that were intact along the shop fronts were covered in large signs declaring “FALL MADNESS.” Broken glass littered the pavement in front of the main entranceway to the Home Depot, but they bypassed that in favour of the area marked ‘Contractor Pickup.’ Jesse pointed out the warp in its roller door where a previous looter had attempted a ram-raid. The hapless vehicle was abandoned next to the roller door, its front smashed in, driver’s side door hanging open. Rajiv swallowed apprehensively as he noted the deep gouges in the driver’s seat and the inside of the open door.

Jesse’s nose wrinkled, peering through the warp into the dim space inside. “Phew! Gross! Something dead in there, all right.”

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t something _undead,_ ” Jerzy snorted as he stepped carefully past, to the broken window in front of the registers. “They aren’t real great about cleaning up after themselves.” He paused as he looked across the check-out. “You sure there are two here?”

“At least two, dunno ‘bout more,” Jesse had come up alongside Jerzy. There were two zombies sprawled in the broken glass and debris by the registers, unflinching as they lay in the weak sunlight. “Yeah, dunno,” Jesse whispered, “I don’t think they were there last time I checked.”

Many of the shelves and end-caps visible from their vantage point were empty. “What are we looking for?” Now Jerzy had the good sense to whisper as well.

“Anything useful,” Rajiv whispered. “Batteries, those are usually in the front, then I dunno, tools and stuff?” He stepped cautiously over the broken glass of the automatic door, wincing as the glass crunched under his feet. Jesse and Jerzy shushed him and he mouthed, ‘I _know_ , I _know!_ ’ He stopped and listened intently, taking further steps slowly and carefully. The quiet swish of Jerzy’s switchblade sounded unnaturally loud to their heightened senses.

Rajiv paused briefly to consider a mostly intact stack of buckets of pool chlorine before passing it by, then pointed out a stack of inflatable floating pool mattresses to Jesse and Jerzy. Jerzy looked puzzled, but Jesse nodded in comprehension, hurrying forward to grab some of the parcels. “Help me throw these outside,” they whispered to Jerzy. The latter frowned before grabbing two of the packages and pitching them through the broken front window, landing with dull thuds on the sidewalk in front of the store. All three froze in place, listening carefully for any reaction to the noise, but the only sound was the wind blowing through the front window, setting brittle pieces of torn cellophane packaging fluttering. Jerzy followed Rajiv as he sidled deeper into the shop, while Jesse threw the remaining mattresses outside before following silently.

Jerzy tapped Rajiv on the shoulder and pointed up at the large signs hanging from the ceiling. “Tools, Aisle 9,” he pointed.

“Yeah, but in the back, I remember,” Rajiv whispered back, “let’s stay closer to the front until we know.”

Jesse pointed to another part of the shop, “Look, beds, over there. We can use blankets and stuff.”

“Maybe,” Rajiv nodded. He turned to Jerzy, “You got a bag?” At Jerzy’s nod, Rajiv pointed at the aisle closest to them. “Screws and nails and stuff,” he whispered, “different sizes.” Jerzy looked with disbelief at the partially broken shelving and scattered packages of hardware and back at Rajiv. “Dad said we really need some of those if they had them.” Jerzy shrugged but moved as silently as he could, knife at the ready, wincing at the loud noise his brown paper bag made as he unfolded it. He began placing the bubble packages strewn across the floor into it as carefully as he could.

Jesse pointed at the stack of bags of charcoal briquets. Rajiv shook his head with a frown, then his eyes lit up and he nodded. Rajiv prepared to throw the bag outside as they had done for the mattresses, but thought the better of it as he realised they would break open. They carried as many bags as they could take in their arms out to the shopping carts they’d left outside. Jerzy handed them the shopping bag full of hardware to place into the cart before stepping back, opening a second bag. "Yeah, baby," he murmured as he began filling the second bag more rapidly, putting down his knife and grabbing double handfuls of bubble-packaged hardware at a time. 

Jesse and Rajiv moved past the thoroughly looted camping supplies aisle and briefly considered the remains of the home appliances aisle. Jesse excitedly laid a hand on a microwave oven box before looking at Rajiv expectantly. “We can’t plug any of that stuff in,” Rajiv whispered, “what’s the point?” Crestfallen, Jesse kept walking. As they walked further into the darkened recesses of the store, they unconsciously drew closer together. The stench of rotting meat was stronger here. Jesse adjusted the scarf to cover nose and mouth. They were standing shoulder to shoulder by the time their eyes adjusted to the dim light in the furniture section.

The boxes of dissembled bed frames had tumbled off their shelving, strewn across the shredded remains of the display beds. A blackened trail meandered over top of the mess. Jesse gripped Rajiv’s arm as a distinct scratching sound came from under the pile, then hurriedly released Rajiv to ready both hands around the crowbar they were using for a weapon. Rajiv swallowed audibly as he readied his hunting knife. The two of them tried to back out as unobtrusively as they could, not noticing that the jingling sound of Jerzy’s collecting had ceased.

The sudden shift of Jerzy’s sneakers upon the linoleum was followed by a short high shriek, punctuated with Jerzy yelling a string of curses. Jesse reflexively crouched against the nearest end cap, trying to look both at Jerzy and at the bedding. “Rat,” Jerzy spat, still scanning the area around where he’d skewered the rat.

Rajiv hurried over and tentatively poked the twitching carcass of the rat with the point of his knife. “Rashed,” he murmured, “shit.”

“Uh,” Jesse poked Rajiv’s arm. Rajiv and Jerzy turned to follow Jesse’s gaze, back toward the furniture section.

“Hey, cat, you want a piece of that rat I got?,” Jerzy snorted as he picked up his paper bag of hardware.

“NOT A CAT!,” the words wafted back from a swiftly-retreating Jesse, already out of the store. The crunching sound of broken glass under Jesse’s running feet was replaced by the quiet swish rolling away of the bicycle’s tires.

The other two men kept their knives drawn as they faced the small beast that tiptoed toward them, claws clicking on the dusty linoleum. They realised a beat too late what Jesse meant as the mangy black animal bared teeth at them, raising the remains of its white-striped tail high into the air.

“SKUNK!” Both men screamed curses as they scrambled to get out. Rajiv tripped over one of the dead zombies as he bolted out from between the registers. Broken glass crunched under his shoulder as he skidded across the floor. He scrambled to get up, but the stench and the claws of the skunk hit him simultaneously. Trying not to breathe, he swung wildly with his knife, connecting with the skunk, but he did not pause to see where the animal had been hit. He tripped again over the lintel of the automatic doors, falling onto the pile of inflatable mattress packages. He squinted through stinging eyes to peer back into the store. Rajiv could see blood next to the zombie he’d tripped over, and a trail leading back through the registers, but the skunk had not followed Rajiv into the daylight.

His shoulder and leg bleeding, Rajiv cursed Jerzy _in absentia_ for abandoning him, but noticed that at least he had taken the shopping cart with the briquettes away when he fled. Keeping an eye out for the skunk’s return, Rajiv piled several of the mattress packages into the second shopping cart next to the untouched lunch boxes and limped back to the shopping centre. He couldn’t even smell his grandmother’s curry as he forlornly pushed the cart uphill, but he was somewhat thankful for the freezing wind in his face blowing the skunk's stench away freom his streaming eyes.


	11. It's All Online These Days, Right On Your Phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Antibiotics are handy to have in an apocalypse. Isn't it a good thing our protagonists happen to have a pharmacy available to them?

Nisha clucked softly and looked over her reading glasses at her grandson. “That’s the second one done. You’re a good strong boy, Rajiv.” She sterilized the needle again and readied another length of thread. “Okay, holding still now.” Rajiv grimaced and braced himself, fidgeting with the crystal chicken Lauren had given him from the gift shop.

A lively discussion had broken out about the best way to deodorize Rajiv and his clothes from the powerful skunk smell, with tomato juice, baking soda, milk, hydrogen peroxide, and vinegar all having their exponents. Rajiv had been forced to wait inside the Garden Ho’s outdoor compound while the argument was going on, holding a rag gingerly on his bleeding leg, until finally Govind had brought around a stockpot of heated water to fill the washing basin and some woollen blankets. Eyes streaming, Govind set about cleaning Rajiv’s wounded shoulder and leg as best he could, while the others debated how to get the information they needed without Google.

Deirdre finally emerged triumphantly from her gift shop, waving a calendar. “Look, I found it!,” she exclaimed, “I already have next year’s _Poor Richard’s Almanack_ calendar!” To the blank expressions that greeted this revelation, she opened the calendar to one of the pages. “They have so many great hints, and look – ‘How to Remove Strong Smells from Clothes’, right here!” They dispatched Lauren and the new boy Hector into the Shop-Rite to get hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to pass through to Govind. Even thoroughly and repeatedly scrubbed and changed into clean clothing, Rajiv still smelled of skunk. At least he could be allowed inside, where Nisha insisted she could sew up the gashes on his leg.

Rachel asked Govind for the keys to the pharmacy cupboards, “Let’s get some antibiotics into him, pronto.” Hefting the keys, she asked, “I don’t suppose we have any records of her inventory?”

Without taking his eyes off his stricken son, Govind shook his head. “She said they were on the computer. They were still working then.”

“Of course,” Rachel grimaced. “I haven’t gone in there before, I don’t suppose they have a Merck Manual?” Blank expressions greeted her question. “Okay, never mind, I’ll look for it.” She left for the pharmacy, with Jerzy on her heels.

“Hey, I’ll go with you.”

She kept her expression neutral. “If you like.”

As they entered the darkened pharmacy, Jerzy unconsciously spoke in more hushed tones. “I feel kinda bad, like it’s my fault. That Rajiv’s, you know, kinda fucked now.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Rachel replied without looking at him, “he should be fine, as long as we make sure he doesn’t get an infection. But not staying with him, that wasn’t your finest hour, I’m sure.”

“Well, but he’s, but yeah,” Jerzy stammered, “I mean, that skunk was all rashed, and I didn’t want to say it in front of his grandmother and stuff, but he’s like, gonna get the rash thing and _die_.”

Rachel had turned on her flashlight as she reached the rear of the drug store, shining it on the shelves under the pharmacy counter. “I don’t think it works like that. Listen, I’m looking for a reference book, it’s called a Merck Manual.” She motioned for Jerzy to help her look. “It gives information on different diseases. I think it might help with finding out what antibiotics I should be looking for.”

Jerzy poked through a few stacks of pamphlets, reading the titles aloud. “’What You Should Know About Your VD Treatment.’ ‘Finding the Right Doctor.’ ‘You’re Becoming a Woman Now.’ ‘Hormone Replacement Therapy, Is It For You?’ Shit. What’s this book look like?”

“I don’t know.” Rachel frowned, “actually yeah, I don’t know, I’ve only ever seen pdfs of it. On…the computer.” She looked at the dark terminal on the counter. “Nuts. They’ve _got_ to still have printed copies of it, don’t they?” She redoubled her poking under the counter. “I mean, I could probably get it off my phone, if we could charge that, maybe. Damn! I wish I could get onto my laptop, I had it downloaded.”

“Are you, like, a doctor?”

“Hmm? No, a lawyer.” She straightened up, shining her flashlight to the shelving above the counter. “Actually, I work for Merck.” She sighed. “Correction, _used to_ work for Merck. I took leave when my partner Shel got sick. And, yeah.” She sighed again and fell silent.

“Your partner? Shel? Aw, shit, he, uhh, she, uhh…,” Jerzy swallowed, “I’m just gonna shut up.”

“Good plan,” Rachel snorted, “best plan I’ve heard all day.” She shone her flashlight onto the lock for the stores of medicines. “Maybe it’s in here.” As she pulled up the security roller door, she shone her flashlight onto the shelves. “Either that or I’ll probably see names I recognize, I guess, if I can’t find the book.”

Scanning the shelves, she said, “Shel had the Spanish Rash, and I’m pretty sure they turned into a zombie.” She couldn’t see Jerzy nodding behind her. “I didn’t know it at the time, I just thought we were going to die, but now I know that some of the ill don’t die, they turn into zombies, for lack of a better word. I’m kinda surprised nobody from here has done that.” She peered at a package.

“Wait, you had the rash, and you got better?”

“What?” Rachel pocketed the box, and picked up another, “no, I didn’t get sick.”

“You said ‘we’ were going to die,” Jerzy called back. “An' I’m not seeing any book like that.”

“Ah! Oh, well,” Rachel flustered, “we just assumed we would both get sick and die, and we…well, I never got sick, only them.” She remembered her suicide pact with Shel, and the long weeks waiting for her own symptoms to show.

Jerzy interrupted her thoughts. “Jeez, I’m sorry. You said ‘them’.”

“Yes, _them._ Shel prefers they/them pronouns,” Rachel said softly, “like Jesse does.” After a beat, she murmured, “Prefer _red_.”

Jerzy grunted, but did not reply. He opened drawers and poked through them for long silent minutes, as Rachel pocketed several more boxes. “Hey, ummm, are you sure we should use these drugs on Rajiv? Shouldn’t we, like, save them or something?”

“Whadda you talking about? Save them for who? I mean, for whom.”

“You didn’t see that skunk,” Jerzy shuddered, “it was like a walking bag of rash, there’s no way Rajiv wouldn’a get the rash offa it.” He shone his flashlight onto the shelves next to Rachel. “An’ if he’s gonna die, we might need to save these for later, is all I’m sayin’.”

“He is not. going. to get the rash, Jerzy.” She glared at him. “It takes a couple of weeks to show the symptoms, right?” Jerzy grunted. She continued, “and let’s face it, we’ve all pretty much given up on keeping anybody isolated, we just can’t. Rajiv’s been here from Day 1, if he was going to get the Spanish Rash, he already would have.” She scanned another shelf, murmuring, “do skunks carry rabies? _That_ might be a thing. Yeesh, I hope not.” She shuddered. “Rabies treatment isn’t trivial.”

Jerzy grunted, and shone his flashlight onto the topmost shelf. “Hang on, what’s up there?” He stood on tiptoes to pull down a dusty book. “What about this?”

Rachel gingerly pushed some of the thick layer of dust off the cover, “YES!” She took the book from Jerzy and excitedly blew more dust off the cover, before awkwardly trying to flip the pages while shining her flashlight onto them. “It’s an older edition, but yeah, this is it! Great stuff!”

Jerzy beamed as she handed the book to him, hurriedly shut the roller doors and locked them. “Let’s go look it up in the light, we can come back if we need to.”


	12. The Lights Go Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter is short, but not sweet by any means. *points to tags about character death*

They huddled together for warmth inside the safe place they had found. There had been only one guardian there when they arrived, which had provided a small but welcome respite from their unending hunger. Most of them couldn’t really process the stench of the rotting bodies surrounding them, but they all appreciated the soft woolly patches among them, which provided the tribe with nesting to shelter from the cold wind and the harsh burning sun. They intertwined their limbs, not noticing when exposed bones sliced through the remains of their clothing. The rags draped over the sheep carcasses, further enhancing the nest. Scarlet rivulets escaped from the holes in the sweatshirts emblazoned ‘Scarlet Knights.’

\----

He wished he had some idea where he was, he was so lost. Endless days travelling, endless days in the rain, snow and wind, endless lines of cars on the highways, going nowhere. He wondered if he was going in circles. He kept going, singing to himself every song of praise he could remember, sometimes trying to come up with new ones to keep from losing his mind. But there was no melody in him anymore, just the dull thud of footfalls while he chanted, “Jesus, help us. Jesus, save us.” And everywhere, everywhere, trees and the remains of animals and people. When he absolutely had to rest, he let himself into the dark houses, taking what he must, commending to God the souls of the former owners, and his own. Sometimes there were monsters in the houses, which he had to vanquish to gain his shelter. He despaired that he too was a monster, for he had stolen, and he had killed. He didn’t remember dying, but surely he was already in Hell?

But then he would come upon an apple tree still bearing some storm-tossed fruit, and the cold crisp taste would bring back the memories of his time before, when he wasn’t a shambling monster.

\----

They’d been so convinced that they had it figured out. _They_ were the ones who would survive when civilization crumbled under the weight of its own incompetence. The home was bermed into the hillside to provide a cozy year-round living temperature. The electric well had a well-maintained old school manual pump as a backup. They’d built the easily-relocatable outhouse, to reclaim their own waste. There were stockpiles of dry and preserved food in a rodent-proof box, so carefully planned for years, which they planned to augment with hunting and fishing. There was a veritable arsenal of ammunition and guns, for when the government came for them.

“These are classic signs of radiation sickness,” she said to him, stroking his face tenderly, grimacing slightly as some of his hair came away in her hand. She paused to examine her hand, regarding the blackened pustules as though they were a scientific specimen. “The nausea, the hair loss, the blotches of dead skin, the wasting away…all of it. And the bastards’ve shut down the phone and internet, too, so we can’t compare notes.”

“They’re lossst,” he whispered weakly, half-blind eyes scanning the corners of the bedroom.

“Yeah, honey, we lost,” she sighed, laying her face on his wasted arm, “I still can’t believe they nuked us all, their own people.” He sighed deeply, drawing a long breath. “But I wrote it all down, and put a copy in the strong box, like we agreed. Someday, someone will know what they did to us.”

“Don’ go.” He pulled a deeper breath.

“I’m right here, baby,” she snuggled against him, “I’m right here.” She laid her head against his chest, listening to his weak heartbeats, as he struggled for breath. Soon, too soon, she couldn’t hear any more. They had stockpiled enough supplies to hold out for years, and enough ammunition to hold off a squadron. But now just one bullet would suffice.

\------

Elsewhere, the dying was taking much too long. With many voices, one voice, one desire, coming closer together all the time, it was time for action. The sun was rising in the southeast with seven flames, it was time to open eyes, open mind, crack the ribcage wide open and let the sun burn the opened heart. With arms flung open, in exquisite ecstasy as every fiber of being was given to the rising fire. So clean, so pure, finally.

\------

In the George Washington Shopping Centre, the generator keeping the refrigeration units going in the Shop-Rite sputtered and went dark.

In the uncanny silence that followed, Govind said, “Well, this is what we talked about. We’re going to have to use up whatever meat is left in the freezer when it thaws.” Only one or two shared his wry chuckle when he said, “Anyone up for a nice curry?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to my alma mater, Rutgers, home of the Scarlet Knights. Minna Sundberg has mentioned that the phenomenon of clusters of similar trolls would arise from a population formed in the same place, so in the first vignette I have a tribe of trolls gleaned from the dorms at Rutgers. They've landed at a sheep farm I know about, near Whitehouse Station.
> 
> (No, I'm not suggesting that the Rash is actually radiation poisoning. I'm suggesting that the symptoms are similar enough for the conspiracy-minded to make that mistake.)


	13. All the Curry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pots and pots of the stuff, in an attempt to utilise what's still there when the generator powering the freezer gives out. Too bad there's barely anybody left alive in the settlement to eat all the stuff. 'Cause it sure does smell good, reeeeal good.

They gathered together what pots they could muster from the Trattoria Alfonso as well as the curry house, and washed out plastic pots from the garden store to hold rice and finished food. Then all of the still-able people were put to work in the seating area of the Curry Palace, readying potatoes and scavenging the thawing packs of frozen vegetables. Govind set up stations for cutting up the different meats.

Nisha said, “keep some of the potatoes, we’ll want those for planting later.” They stared at her. “Does anybody still think this is going to cured in a few weeks and we’ll all go home?” She threw up her hands.

The residents of the George Washington Shopping Center stared at each other. Nisha had broached the topic none of them was ready to say out loud. As Nisha retreated back into the restaurant kitchen, Angelina wiped her face with her sleeve. “Fuckin’ onions,” she muttered. No one pointed out to her that she was cutting celery.

In the back room, Nisha looked at her pantry shelves and sighed deeply. “I don’t have enough spices,” she said to Rachel, “I was supposed to go to Jersey City to stock up, before Priti fell ill. Then, eh, we came here.” With air quotes, she said in a fair imitation of Govind, _“Just temporary.”_ She shrugged as she shifted the few bags still in the pantry around, as though new bags would appear beneath them. “Those frozen vegetables are tasteless! I’ll need so much to make them almost okay.”

“There’s spices in the Shop-Rite,” Rachel gestured with her chopping knife, “probably tons of those little boxes, right? What do you need?”

Nisha scoffed and closed the pantry doors. She walked twice around the restaurant’s stainless steel food prep island, muttering, before opening the pantry doors again. Rachel ducked her head as she peeled garlic, trying not to stare at Nisha. She’d never seen her so agitated.

“All right. Rachel.” Nisha stood alongside Rachel and glared up at her. Rachel almost forgot her legal training and shrank back from the baleful glare, but composed herself to return Nisha’s gaze steadily. “It won’t matter soon anyway, yeah but we can use that _kamabakht_ stuff.” Rachel did not know the word Nisha used to describe the ‘stuff’, but the way the older woman spat the word as she broke her stare, it probably wasn’t very nice. “Ai! Won’t matter soon.” She tottered out of the restaurant’s kitchen, leaving Rachel frowning thoughtfully at her retreating back.

Nisha called out to her grandson Rajiv, but as he struggled to get up from his meat-slicing station she bade him sit back down. “Never mind! Never mind! Sit!,” the force in her voice made him jump. “I need spices. I don’t know the names in English. And coconut stuff.” She waved her hands around.

Govind hurriedly washed his hands in a bucket of hot soapy water and came over to the kitchen door. “Ma! Ma, we’ll get it. What do you need?” She rattled off the names of the ingredients she wanted. Govind nodded as he wrote down the list as Nisha tottered back into the kitchen, still waving her hands.

Making his way through the dark shops of the mall, Govind heard the gleeful voices of the children playing in the Shop-Rite. Calling them to him, he gave them the list of Nisha’s ingredients. The older boy, Hector, could read it well enough to satisfy Govind, who dispatched them on their task with a flashlight.

Walking alone back to the restaurant, he allowed his habitual smile to disappear. He wondered what they were doing; all that food was going to go to waste anyway. How could they preserve it? There were only about a dozen of them left who were still unaffected by the epidemic, and yet here they were, preparing enough food to feed an army. And after that, after that, what would they do?

Within a short time, the whole mall was permeated with the enticing smell of cooking meat and spices.

\------

The giant stirred. Their bulk did not quite fit entirely under the culvert under Route 80 where they were taking refuge, and they were compelled to change position as one portion or another was exposed to the glare of the sun.

One of the many now found themselves blinking in the sun, wondering how he came to be staring at a muddy hillside and a bunch of cars pulled over to the side of the road. His head hurt, his back hurt, his legs were…he couldn’t twist around to see what was going on with his legs, but they didn’t feel right somehow. There was a muddy pile of blue and red Giants sweatshirts next to his face. A smell came to him, a smell he couldn’t quite place, but it stirred something inside him, inside all of them.

It was hard to tell over the screaming, but it felt like they were all burning in the sun all together as they moved. As they cowered in the shade of a nearby stand of trees, they recovered enough to place what the smell was, a memory buried inside, laughing with a lover, squabbling with a family, relaxing after a business conference. Curry. They all lurched forward again, screaming in the sun.

\------

Nisha measured out some of their ghee into the bottom of the stockpot before adjusting the gas flame. The community had started the practice of cooking using outdoor fires and hibachis to conserve their stores of bottled gas, but the day’s planned bulk cooking required the more regular cooking available on a gas stove. She grunted, “should be enough. We’ll get Govind to use some of those barbecues for the meat.”

“You mean the ones for sale at the garden store?,” Rachel looked sidelong at Nisha, who grunted assent. The older woman had been unusually cross and abrupt while they were cooking. Rachel had come to know Nisha fairly well over the weeks cooking alongside her, but she couldn’t figure out if Nisha was just focussed on the task at hand today, or if there was something else going on.

As though hearing her thoughts, Nisha gave Rachel a brief look as she stirred chopped garlic and a tin of tomato paste into the ghee. “The day is coming,” she said. Rachel did not reply as she tried to puzzle over what Nisha meant. The heady scent of garlic filled the kitchen. Nisha frowned at Rachel more directly. “Rachel.”

“I’m listening,” Rachel said calmly, stirring the pot she was monitoring. She knew that tone of voice, the direct tone the corporate bosses used to take when they debriefed their legal team. At work, it meant a mess was incoming. But here?

Nisha took a medicine vial off the shelf behind her and rattled it at Rachel. It sounded nearly empty, only a few pills inside. “This is all I have left,” she said softly, “and then I have no more.”

“What is it?”

Nisha returned the vial to the shelf. “My medicine. It keeps me alive.” Rachel gestured in the direction of the pharmacy and opened her mouth to speak, but Nisha shook her head. “I already got all she had, that’s it.”

“So,” Rachel stared into the pot, “how long?” _Crap._

“I’ve been taking it…spaced out, so…maybe a few days left, maybe a week.” Nisha stirred the garlic and tomato paste while she emptied some of the boxes of spices into the bubbling ghee. “After that, not too long,” she shrugged, not looking at Rachel, “we’ll see.”

“That’s why you’ve been teaching me.” Rachel nodded to herself, keeping her expression neutral. “Makes sense.” She sighed. “Govind know?” Nisha didn’t meet her gaze. “That means no.”

Nisha spread out her hands, “He is thinking about everyone. And I’m old anyway. I don’t know why I didn’t catch the stupid Rash thing.” She took a plate full of limp blocks of semi-frozen spinach and scraped them into the pot, then peered into the pot after them.

\------

In another life, he would have welcomed walking in these woods on a crisp November day. So long ago now. He had the oddest feeling that if he turned around, he would see his Scout troop marching along behind him, his son among them. A hallucination, sent by Satan, or possibly by his hunger.

He had pressed overland through the woods, away from the exposed roads, for the last several days, or weeks, he couldn’t quite tell which. Either way, it had been too long since he ate. He wasn’t quite desperate enough to scavenge the carcasses littering the forest floor, even the fresh ones. With Jesus’ aid, he could endure.

Now he was hallucinating again; he could swear he could smell…curry?

\------

In houses, schools, apartment blocks, sheds, forest bunkers, tunnels, garages, the survivors stirred. Hope came unlooked for, a zephyr of fragrance felt under the tongue and at the nape of the neck. Without conscious thought, they turned their faces to the warmth of the hope. Following a compulsion they could not articulate, they loaded their belongings onto their backs and left their hiding places, squinting into a seven-flamed sun on a crisp day.

They knew not how they came to be pulling on the chainlink outside the Curry Palace.

\------

Govind left Deirdre and Jerzy looking after the meat on the barbecue grills, to go investigate the chainlink rattling outside the restaurant’s front door. His mouth dropped open when he saw dozens of people congregated there. Their faces reflected shock, confusion, bewilderment. He gathered his composure as he fished the key for the padlocks from his coat pocket.

“Welcome!,” he called out, “you are welcome here.” He held the gate open for them, and they filed in wide-eyed, arms and backs laden with whatever they could carry when the call came. They stared at Govind, and at Rajiv holding open the door of the restaurant by leaning against it, motioning them inside.

Once inside, the newly-arrived survivors began chattering amongst themselves, using voices they had not dared release in their hiding places. “Hi, my name is Chase.” “This is my daughter, Meghan.” “Sorry, where did you say we are?” “No, I come from Blairstown.” “My mommy’s dead.” “Sucks. Mine too.” “I’m sorry, can I help? Is there anything I can do?” “I don’t think I’ve ever been here.” “Oh, that smells _so_ good!” “I am Sarita.” “I didn’t think there was anybody left.” “I don’t have any money, are you sure?” “It’s just the two of us left.” “You’re _living_ here? In this restaurant?” “No, it’s okay, I feel like crying, too.” Govind helped the newcomers to lay their burdens along the walls and in through the opening to the gift shop, an irrepressible grin lighting up his face.

Nisha came out from the kitchen and imperiously clapped her hands for silence. The chattering died down as she said, “Yes, hello, hello, my name is Nisha, good afternoon. Never mind that, time to eat, then we will talk. Rajiv, Hailey, show them where to wash their hands. Jesse, show them where the dishes are.” With that she turned and tottered back into the kitchen, calling back to Rachel, “okay, they’re here, let’s bring out the food.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’re here’?” Rachel brought out the stockpot of palak sauce, almost dropping it when she saw the throng in the restaurant. Jerzy sidled in past Govind, arms laden with a large tray piled high with grilled meat, followed closely by Deirdre with a second large tray. Jugs of orange juice from frozen concentrate appeared on the tables.

Nisha brought out the first of the pots of rice they had cooked and placed it ceremoniously on the table next to the palak while Rachel went back to bring out the rest of the curries, one by one. The newcomers looked at one another and back to the residents, disbelief showing plainly on their faces.

Angelina finally picked up a plate, piled a scoopful of rice on it, and spoke to the nearest of the newcomers, “You want the green stuff, or the yellow stuff, or the red stuff?” Before they could answer, she hastened to add, “They’re all nice. And there’s chicken, and some beef, and I think that’s chorizo? Oh, there's kielbasa. Whatever you want, here y’go.”

The refugees slowly found themselves forming an orderly line, along with the residents, until the candlelit restaurant was once again full of the sound of happy chatting people and silverware scraping on plates.

\------

The sun set, and a slender moon rose early in the evening. This was good travelling weather, without the burning sun to hinder them, even if the cold did bite along the edges. The enticing fragrance of the curry did not manage to transport them, but it still drove them onward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curried kielbasa? Sure, why not? Needs must, in this situation.


	14. Happy Thanksgiving Indeed

“I missed this, Rajiv,” Govind confided to his son. The young man followed his father’s gaze and nodded. The Curry Palace was full of diners for the first time since the Spanish Rash came to the US.

Rajiv cast his eyes down again as he swirled a forkful of grilled lamb through the masala sauce on his plate. “Not the same without Mama, or Sanjay.”

His father nodded. “So many lost. I don’t think we’re done yet.” He looked at his mother, thoughtfully chewing her portion, now that she had finally been persuaded to sit down and eat. Rachel had confided to him what Nisha had told her about her medication. He couldn’t quite process the idea that his powerful mother could be brought low; even the deadly Rash had not touched her.

 _Priti, poor Priti,_ they didn’t know until too late that it was the Spanish Rash afflicting her. She ended up looking worse than the lepers of Mumbai, whispering to the spirits that came to take her away.

Sanjay, though, had appeared healthy all the way until the night he clutched his head, screaming back at the voices calling to him, before running from his post on the roof of the Shop-Rite. Govind had last seen his elder son stumbling into the trees separating the shopping centre from the houses beyond, screaming. He had been stopped from going after Sanjay by Jeff. Later Jerzy and others who had witnessed similar scenes confirmed that this was what had happened just before a loved one turned into one of the shambling undead, the ‘zombies.’

He looked around the room again, at the gaunt diners chewing their meat thoughtfully, casting furtive glances around the room themselves. His eyes fell upon the children, Lauren and Hector, talking excitedly to some of the new refugee children and slipping pieces of meat to the cats crouched at their feet under the table. He saw Deirdre smiling kindly to some of the new people, but he noticed that she was chewing on only one side of her mouth, occasionally wincing. “I have to try,” he stated aloud. He stood up, tinging a fork handle gently on the side of his drinking glass.

“Attention everyone,” he called out, and several people approvingly called for a speech, raising their hands and dining implements to him. “I want to thank you all for being here tonight.” Only a few met his wry smile. He sighed as he carefully put down the fork.

“I want to thank Rachel, and Deirdre, and Jerzy, and most especially my mother,” Nisha acknowledged the applause with a crooked smile and disparaging wave of her hand, “for preparing all this food. For those of you who have just arrived tonight, your coming is a blessing to us. We have been fortunate that we have had the resources to survive until the government regroups and gets the epidemic under control.” Govind clasped his hands in front of him as he looked around at the gaunt and guarded faces as they murmured restlessly amongst themselves.

“The gove’ment?” “They don’ care ‘bout us, they just-“ “They’re all dead too.” “They _made_ the zombies, man.” “Hah! _I_ am the Law, now! Haha!” “They tryna make _super_ soldiers, like a movie.” “Shit.” “So many of these superbugs around now, I was at the hospital, and I saw-“ “Mm-hmm, you right, you know that.” Govind shifted from foot to foot, occasionally holding out his hands. A young black man in a hoodie now two sizes too large for him called out, “Hey man, let the man talk, c’mon man!”

Govind began again. “So much has been taken from us, but we, somehow, are still here. All of us. Maybe you’re right, maybe there isn’t a government anymore. I don’t know. But know this, that you all may stay with us, as part of _our_ community. Thank you.” He sat down.

Amidst the applause, the young man in the hoodie stood up, “Thanks man, you the best. Hey, this is like Thanksgiving, alla us at these tables, right? Close enough, anyway. I even got a drumstick, man! Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!” He waved his drumstick to the assembled around the restaurant before sitting down again.

The diners echoed, “Happy Thanksgiving!”

Govind leaned over and kissed Nisha on the cheek. “Happy Thanksgiving, Mother.”

\-----------

It wasn’t real. It was just a mirage. Maybe it was Jesus’ doing, maybe it was Satan, maybe it was just some part of his brain rotting in its dead skull, misfiring upon some distant memory, of a meal at an Indian restaurant with his family.

The traveller didn’t remember dying. He’d been stumbling along a highway that looked vaguely familiar, following not God’s celestial light leading him to Heaven, but the scent of curry borne upon the wind. There was a hint of thunder rumbling from somewhere further along the same highway, growing louder as a storm approached.

The cold wind was at his back, though.

None of this made any sense. In an otherwise completely darkened landscape, there was a restaurant with dim light showing through a glass door. Its windows were boarded shut, cars were piled up around a tall chainlink fence surrounding the strip mall the restaurant was in, but the restaurant was open. The enticing smell came from here, there was no mistaking that. The insanity pulling his dying synapses around was even trying to convince him he’d been here before, that his family had eaten at this restaurant. He could even dimly see the words ‘Curry Palace’ on its unlit white sign, under the banner of ‘George Washington Shopping Centre.’

He could not see Angelina on watch on the mall’s roof, blinking at him through her rifle’s night vision sight.

The sound of thunder was definitely getting closer. He thought that dead or not, maybe he should shelter somewhere in one of the cars parked outside of the hallucination. Squinting into the darkness, he reconsidered that plan. That sound wasn’t thunder, that was the biggest abomination Satan had ever created, and it was headed right for _his_ mirage.

It was up to him. This was his test. “Jesus, be with me tonight,” he said aloud, as he took the first lurching step forward toward his imaginary restaurant.

“Holy SHIT!” came the answer from the rooftop.

\-----------

“Okay Govind, I get that, I get the warm fuzzies thinking about us as a community.” Rachel gestured with her hands, forming an invisible globe in the air over her dinner plate. “And, I also get that most of us cannot go back to our homes, at least not soon.” Looking at the crestfallen faces around her, she continued, “I’m sorry, but it’s true, isn’t it? I’ve been here for weeks, and things were falling apart even then. I’ve been listening to all of you tonight, it doesn’t sound like things have been getting any better since then, am I right? No electricity, no water, zombies in basements, army jeeps torn apart.” Getting no response, she touched her fingertips together, “We’re very lucky indeed, but we can’t stay _here.”_

“I’m tired of running,” one of the newcomers, a heavyset man with a florid face, slapped his hand on the table. “You’re right, lady, you haven’t seen. You haven’t seen… you,” he shook his head and slumped. “I don’t know how I got here, I’m gonna be honest with youse, but Mr. Govind here has the right idea.” Most of the others nodded their assent. “I don’ even know how I would get back?”

An older woman shrieked, “Are you just gonna la-di-dah just like that and kick us out?” Govind held his hands out in placation.

Rachel mirrored Govind’s gesture, “NO! No, that’s _not_ what I’m saying!” I’m just,“ the rest of her sentence went unheard behind the rising clamor, “saying this mall is not equipped to house people long-term.”

“There’s plenty of room, whaddya you sayin’!” Jerzy boomed.

“There’s some houses right over by the river,” Jesse pointed.

“There’s monsters!,” Hailey wailed.

“There’s no way back, there’s no way!,” the older refugee shrieked.

“Of course you can stay here,” Govind held his hands to his head.

“No, I meant, where are we going _next_ , that’s all I’m saying, that’s not-,” Rachel scowled at the florid man.

“It’s fine! It’s fine! It’s _fine,_ ” Deidre pleaded.

“Govind! She’s right, you know she’s right,” Nisha gestured with her bread.

“People! There’s a giant zombie coming, an’,” Angelina burst in, half-dragging the gaunt gibbering traveller by the arm, “an' we’ve got to-"

“Giant zombie?” Rajiv leapt to his feet. “MOVE, PEOPLE! You know the drill!”

The newcomers did not know the drill, but allowed the residents to lead them toward the Shop-Rite’s loading dock and cold stores, the most secure walls in the mall.

“Jesus, save them! With your aid, we will,” the traveller wielded his cross at the apparitions in front of him, and at the very real-seeming person wearing a face conjured from his memories, that was clutching him by the arm.

“DADDY!!” Lauren launched herself across the room toward Angelina and the traveller.

The traveller stared down at the squealing apparition that took him by the hand, looking for all the world like his youngest daughter, Lauren, allowing her to lead him away from the restaurant, and through what looked like a pharmacy. It certainly looked real. "Lauren?" He turned to the other apparition who had led him inside. “I, I am Michael, I’m Jennifer’s dad. You look… you look like Angelina? Is it really you?”

“Yeah,” Angelina stroked his arm, “It’s me, it’s okay. Listen, I gotta… listen, we’ll talk in a moment, I am so sorry, but I gotta…”

She was interrupted by a thunderous blast shuddering through the complex. The people still heading through the produce area of the Shop-Rite watched in terror, clutching their ears, as the ceiling above the far side of the supermarket and the Trattoria Alfonso disappeared in a cloud of shrapnel and dust. The wind roared through, blowing over the dusty displays and scattering scraps of red and blue Giants sweatshirts and scarves through the back of the store. Above the screams of the crush attempting to reach safety came a roar from the giant, many screams from what still remained of throats and minds of the imprisoned infected.

The humans who hadn’t torn their eyes away to flee could see the giant illuminated, golden light rippling along its bulk, flickering rays of golden light outlining the craters where non-living eyes had once stared unblinking. The light of the rising sun flooded in from the southeast as the giant reared upward, then fell backward, its many limbs raised in a vain effort to ward off the beams of light. Everywhere the rays of light touched, flames licked along, and within moments the entire giant was alight.

The giant withdrew from the flank of the strip mall, still screaming, flames reaching skyward. It crushed the cars in the far carpark as it thrashed, adding remnants of their fuel and oil to the conflagration. The sun rose higher above the shopping centre, but was now revealed to be a much smaller body surrounded by seven flames, shining with fierce intensity. Those who shielded their eyes against its brightness could discern a figure held aloft within the rays, guiding shafts of flame onto the thrashing giant with outstretched hands.

“That’s a guy!,” yelled the florid-faced refugee.

“That ain’ right,” the woman next to him distractedly shrugged off his arm pushing her along, staring at the giant.

“No. F***ing. Way,” Rajiv whispered, letting the hatchet he’d grabbed from the guard station fall onto the floor unheeded with a dull clang.

“JESUS! Help us Jesus, Bringer of Light!” Michael cried out. He raised his arms toward the light, as Lauren clutched his leg and buried her face in her father’s coat.

“Agni! AGNIIIII,” Nisha wailed as she fell cowering to the floor, covering her head in supplication.

Govind was startled by his mother’s collapse, but even as he rushed over to assist her found his eyes drawn to the nascent sun once again. His hands fell limp to his sides as he stared slack-jawed directly into the glare. Dark red spots floated in front of Govind’s eyes as he screamed above the roar, his voice cracking.

**_“SANJAAAAAY!”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's just not Thanksgiving without families getting together, am I right?


	15. Sun Plus Song, Does Not Equal Fun (Sanjay's Story)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be an SSSS-universe story without the emergence of magic, now would it?

Once the giant was fully alight, Sanjay made pulling gestures with his hands. With each gesture, gouts of flame escaped from holes in the giant’s body. Each motion was completed with Sanjay throwing his arm upward and splaying out his fingers, as though throwing something into the air. “Go!,” he cried with each throw, before bringing the arm back downward for another virtual handful.

The giant screamed with hundreds of voices, and cracked into several chunks. Arms emerging from the chunks made an attempt to crawl away before falling still, the screaming dying away.

The quiet that followed was almost as thunderous by contrast. As the wind died down, soft snowflakes fell, hissing slightly as they fell upon the steaming body of the fallen giant.

In the stillness, a soft song could be heard. A single child’s voice arose in the half-wrecked Shop-Rite, filled the space were the Trattoria Alfonso had been, and swirled above the steaming mass in the carpark. The song spoke of comfort, and home, and peace, although none later could recall exactly what the words were.

Lauren finished her song with a soft hiccup and a tiny, “thank you.”

The small sun that was Sanjay brought his palms together in an attitude of prayer, lowering his forehead to his clasped hands. Govind let the tears run down his face as he stared transfixed at Sanjay, as his elder son’s light dimmed and he lowered down to the carpark next to the giant. As though released from a trance, others wiped away their tears as they rushed to the wreckage of the hospice set up in the Italian restaurant.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” Lauren looked up at Michael from where she was still hugging his leg, “they’ve all gone to be with Jesus, now.” She smiled beatifically, “like Mommy and Jenn and Chris and LaTisha and Tyrell and the little baby and-“

“What?” Michael interrupted his daughter to gaze down at her, “what did you say?” Michael sank to his knees, as the accumulated shocks took their toll. “Melissa?,” he whimpered. Lauren’s eyes were wide and calm, and he swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, as recovered his composure somewhat under her still gaze. “That was beautiful, sweetie,” he managed to croak.

“Jesus taught me a song to help Mommy go to heaven, and now I sing it for everybody.” She hugged him. “But I knew _you’d_ come back, Daddy, Jesus told me He’d help you find your way here, and He’s always right.” Michael tore his gaze from Lauren to look at Sanjay striding toward his father. Lauren giggled, “ _That’s_ not Jesus, Daddy, that’s just some other god.”

Rachel laid a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Hey, listen, you got here just when we evacuated, right? Can I get you some food?,” she asked kindly. “You hungry?” With a bemused expression, Michael wiped his tears, slowly nodded and allowed Rachel to help him up. Lauren kept hold of his hand as he shuffled back to the Curry Palace on Rachel’s arm.

“Hey, Baba, ‘sup?,” Sanjay smiled at Govind. Govind’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out, until he wrapped his son in a hug. Rajiv ran over and hugged them both together. Sanjay laughed then, but then bent over, hands upon his shaking knees. “Uhhh, that kinda, whew!... took a bit out of me. Do I smell Dadi’s curry? Can I have some?”

Rajiv supported a sagging Sanjay, “Okay, _now_ I believe you’re not dead.” He shifted Sanjay’s arm across his shoulders, Govind took his other side, with Nisha following. Normally Sanjay was taller than either man, so he stumbled as they led him back to the restaurant. “But you’re still kind of burning hot,” Rajiv said, “have you got a fever?” Govind and Rajiv exchanged a concerned look over Sanjay’s shoulders.

In the restaurant, Sanjay perked up as he accepted a bowl of curry with a delighted gasp. “YEAH! Dadi’s curry! Oh man, I missed this!” He shovelled a spoonful into his mouth, chewing with a blissful expression. Then he turned starstruck eyes to Nisha. “Dadi, do you have any of your _special_ red spice? _Please?_ ”

Nisha shrugged and cast a sidelong glance around her, “Eh, maybe.” But her eyes twinkled as she shuffled to the kitchen. She returned shortly with a small jar, as Sanjay related his story.

“I started hearing those voices, like, all the time. Most of the time I could ignore it, but sometimes they were just so loud! And, and, they kept wanting me to come help them. All the time,” he shook his head. “So, at first I thought it was somebody at the gate, so I’d go down but there was nobody there. And Baba wouldna 've let anybody in either. Then next thing I know, the watch shoots something, and BANG! no more voices. I’d go all, ‘Oh no!’ and run and go check, but they’d have gotten a zombie, not a person. Then, like I said, all the time, and louder. Finally, I couldn’t take any more, and next thing I knew, I was running through some streets an’ everything was pitch black.” He paused to sprinkle some of the crystals of red spice Nisha had brought him over his curry. “But then, I realized that I knew where I was – just around the corner from my house. So, I went home. I mean, if I was infected, I may as well die at home, right?” He took another bite and hummed in appreciation as he chewed. “Oh, this is just THE BEST. Anyway-”

Govind jumped up from his seat next to Sanjay as the new refugees filed back into the restaurant, casting worried looks around them. “Wait, I want to hear everything, but we need to settle everyone in first. Sanjay, you, just eat. Mama, you stay there – make him eat.” Deidre stopped Govind, ordering him in turn to look after his newly returned son. Rachel put a hand on Nisha’s shoulder to reinforce Govind's order for her to sit down, too, before corralling some new refugees to show them how the dishes got washed.

Sanjay described going back into their home. “It was weird, being all dark, no power, nothing. I even caught myself trying to flick the lights on in each room. I tried to find a flashlight, even though I knew we took them all to the restaurant. Finally I found some matches, and Mama’s candles.”

“Her special candles? She never wanted to burn those,” Rajiv murmured. “Remember, we gave them to her for her birthday that one time, but she wouldn’t burn them?”

Sanjay nodded. “I know, right? They still smelled pretty decent, and so I just sat there with the voices in my head, looking at Mama’s candles burn. And… wondering how long I might have left. Finally I took the candle and went upstairs to bed.”

He went on to describe thoroughly examining himself the next day and finding no rash on his body. Wrapping a bandanna around his face as a mask and to help combat the stench of unseen decomposing bodies, he knocked on each neighbour’s door on their street, but got no answer, nor on the next streets on either side. Each night, he went back to his house as night fell and ate cold food from cans left in the cupboards. He slept fitfully, continually taunted by the voices in his head.

After some days like this, a neighbour’s dog chased him home, scratching the slammed door in her frenzy to attack Sanjay, until he was forced to go back outside and bash the dog until she lay still. Crying, he shut himself in the house, but could sense the dog’s spirit joining the other voices he couldn’t shut out, pacing around just out of reach. He himself still exhibited no rash, but he rationalized that maybe the rash was optional, while hearing the voices definitely meant he was still going to die soon.

After a week and a half alone in the house, the special candles were almost completely burnt. Sanjay found the tea lights and incense by the family’s shrine, now coated in dust. Sanjay described lighting a candle and burning some incense, then finding himself lost in wonderment as the volume of the voices decreased. He wrapped himself in his blankets to sleep on the floor in front of the shrine, sleeping peacefully for the first time in some weeks. After that night, he moved the mattress to sleep in front of the shrine every night.

Soon after that, he dreamt he was on a wide beach under the stars, looking across the water at a star that rose in front of him. The star became a seven-rayed sun, and a god stepped out of it onto the water, striding across to where Sanjay was standing. The god smiled and introduced himself to Sanjay as Agni. Agni showed Sanjay the fire of cremation that was his to command, and how he should use it properly. The god laughed heartily when Sanjay asked tremulously if this gift was for his own funeral pyre.

Sanjay spent the next several weeks testing his new powers, burning down buildings where zombies were nesting, and freeing troubled spirits wherever he could find them. He described coming upon a dairy farm not far from the shopping centre, where the farmers and most of the cows were dead, while some were turned into undead zombies. He saved one cow that was miraculously untouched by disease, and burnt the rest of the barn down. After that, he recovered a few more healthy animals in the surrounding area, taking them back to the feed shed to shelter.

“I’ll go get them tomorrow, I guess, and bring them back here,” he scraped his bowl clean with some bread. “I’m sure we can use a cow, and a couple of horses, and some dogs, right?” His eyes lit upon Lolcat, staring at him warily from under an adjacent table. “Do you know, I didn’t see any cats affected by the disease? None of the cats wanted to come home with me, but they weren’t diseased, either. It’s kinda weird.”

“That’s not weird. Weird is, my brother turning into some kind of Hindu god,” Rajiv punched him on the shoulder.

“I didn’t turn into a god, I just can, sort of, call upon Agni’s help sometimes.” Sanjay looked at his family clustered around him. “I’m still just Sanjay. And I mean, I still do hear them. The voices, I mean.” He looked around at their rapt faces. “All. The time. But, I know now what to do, and how to help some of them go, wherever it is they’re going.”

He scrubbed his face with his hands in exhaustion, covering a yawn. “Man, I am beat. That singing was pretty great, too, it really helped a lot. I don’t think that was Agni, though. Who was doing that?” The other three family members looked at one another in confusion. They’d all been looking at Sanjay, and hadn’t noticed the singer, even as her song had filled them with hope.

Two tables away, Lauren was chattering at her father about all the food in the aisles of the Shop-Rite, as he struggled to eat more than the few spoonfuls of curry and rice he’d managed to get into his shrunken stomach. Michael stared down at Lauren’s hand on his arm, still not completely believing that she wasn’t an apparition.

Deidre had sent Jesse to find the extra air mattresses while she ushered people into her gift shop. Carrying the packages, Jesse said to her, “What I said earlier? About empty houses by the river? Maybe we could, you know, move some of us into those? I didn’t see any zombies.”

“But those are all somebody’s houses,” she protested. “We can’t just, _take over,_ I dunno, other people’s houses! That’s just not right. We’ve got room here,” she looked about and nudged mattresses closer to one another on the floor, “it’ll, I dunno, there’s room, it’ll keep us warmer, right?”

“Jesse’s got a point,” Rachel said between puffs blowing up air mattresses. “Maybe we can try to get some fencing around a few houses, and move the community in there.”

“The community.” Deidre stopped blowing up the mattress she was working on to stare at Rachel. “Govind said that, too, earlier. Do, do you think we can just do that? Y’know, just move right into other people’s houses?”

Rachel shrugged. “We can’t stay here. And if they’re abandoned, who’s going to stop us? ‘Oh yeah? Well I’m a lawyer, you can’t stop me!’” She grimaced, “I’ve been thinking about this. It’s true, we’ve got food here, but it’s going to run out. We’re going to need to maybe grow some food.”

Deidre set the bung into the mattress she was blowing up, nodding, “We’ve got seeds in the Garden Ho’s still, I guess we could do that.” Another refugee asked if he could help, and Deidre handed him a mattress to blow up.

Jesse chimed in, “It won’t be as long a haul to get the water every day, either. Do you know how to grow food, though?”

“Not really. My Shel was always better with the houseplants. But I should be able to Goog-“ Rachel caught herself. “We’ll figure it out.” She looked over to the new refugees, sorting out sleeping arrangements between themselves and the existing residents in the gift shop. “Somebody might know how, and I know some of us go hunting.”

“True, Angelina hunts, at least. But what if they catch something with the disease, we couldn’t eat that, could we?”

Jesse mimed gagging. “I’ve seen the cats do that, and they’re not dead yet. But _gross,_ just, NO.”

Rachel mirrored Jesse’s gagging, “Ugh, maybe if we cook it for _a week._ I hope we don’t get desperate enough to try it.” She shrugged and picked up another mattress. “Whaddya gonna do? It’s like we’re the Israelites travelling through the wilderness, and now we even got ourselves a burning bush, right? Maybe we’ll get some manna from heaven too, along with the snow. We’ll figure it out,” she applied a long exhale into the mattress before continuing, “as a community.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks, this is essentially the end of the story. Thanks for hanging with me over the months.
> 
> This was a bit of a love letter to the part of northwestern New Jersey where I grew up, and arose from a memory of walking in dappled shade along a quiet back road near my house, during a hot summer when the 17-year cicadas were in full cry.  
> So _of course_ I wrote a story that takes place in a shopping strip in autumn and early winter, with most of the cast dying.  
>  But the very first paragraph I wrote for the story (and which I now won't be using, I guess) describes such a summer scene, from the point of view of a character (later developed as Angelina) keeping watch over her community. I then started writing the prequel, which became the whole story. Inspiration is a funny thing, yesnomaybe?


End file.
